p.s.

oh just another finnish tradition I remembered, so they make this delicious drink called "glogi" pronounced gluggy, which is basically really hot fruit juice that tastes a bit like hot apple cider, only better. And in it you put almond slices, sometimes whole ones, and raisins, which you spoon out with a spoon. It's really tasty and you enjoy it with gingerbread cookies and other yummy things. And yeah, everytime we visit someone's house over christmas it's what we always drink. Along with eating Torttu, a star shaped flaky biscuit with pie filling in the middle usually blueberry, sometimes chocolate or strawberry, or even apple. They're realllly tasty :) And yeah, I'll probably have a lot more of these type blogs, as I slowly remember different things we did.


!$%?#$ :D

i willll

post more blogs, more frequently, once the hype of the holiday season is over. You would think being on break meant more free time, but tis not so. I leave tomorrow morning at 8 with Annina, my host mom Raija, and her friend for a week long stay at Annina's cousin in Helsinki ! The capital city of Finland. I'm pretttty stoked and will definitely take millions and zillions of pictures for you all to see when I get back, and I'll post like a mega post of all the happenings, so look forward to that ! As for this past week, lets get to talking :) So Finns celebrate Christmas over the course of three days, its pretty spectacular and fantastic to say the least. The main day is what we would consider Christmas Eve, the 24th. The daytime activities are minimal, the idea is just to be at home without worrying about what to do or when to do it. The parents cook all day, but none of it is rushed, theres no certain time that everyone eats, just when the food is ready. My host dad told me that Christmas is the only day of the year that 96% of all Finns eat the exact same meal. This meal consists of: a slow cooked [and by slow I mean overnight in the oven, 9 hours total, slow cooked] ham, potatoes, both mashed and baked, a seaweed and mayonaise concoction that disgusts me beyond belief, but some people, mainly the finns, find it quite the delicacy. There is also raw fish, both "ice fish", I dunno what that is, and raw salmon, and then smoked salmon served cold. Also found on this table is bread only baked and sold two weeks before and after christmas, it just happens to be plain old raisin bread, but they think its fantastic and therefore it is a special holiday treat :) Aren't we lucky ? There is also lantuu, which is rutabaga, we had to look that up in the dictionary and I'm still not sure what rutabaga even is...mashed carrots cooked in the oven along side a pan of liver and rice pudding, mmmmm, can't get enough of that...that wasn't really my favorite. We also had scalloped potatoes with a creamy onion-y sauce, that was really tasty, and also some mushroom-y type spread for the bread, not too bad. Soda for dinner is only allowed on holidays and rarely drunk [drunk, is that right?] on any other occasion. So we got to enjoy some nice coca-cola and sprite, it was exciting. For dessert my host mom, Raija, and I made a cheesecake with rasperries on top, a mocha-fudge cake [which by the way doesn't taste the same a week later...] and of course, coffee to go with everything :) After dinner and dessert, which took up about 2 and a half hours to complete, everyone dispersed to their own quarters to ponder commiting suicide as we all felt as if we were going to explode at any given moment. About an hour or so later there came a knock at our door ! Raija called the boys downstairs and then opened the door to none other than, SANTA CLAUS ! It was spectacular, he came in right through the front door :) He brought bags of presents, made us sing to him, I even did a nice rendition of Jingle Bells, and Raija and Alvar sang some finnish-y christmas song. Santa was sweet, although he kept hitting his cowbell and it was kind of annoying. You can see this thrilling event here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzPKNjdBJJ4. After our nice encounter with Santa Claus everyone dug into their presents, not making much fuss about what they got, it was a very quiet time to say the least, minus me of course, who made exciting exclamations over every present opened :D After the mess was cleaned up and thank yous were made, we trudged upstairs to watch a Jackie Chan movie :) Complete with Finnish subtitles of course. Then we all went into a deep, dreamy sleep and woke in the morning to the smell of......more ham ! Yes, ham for breakfast. As well as everything else that had appeared the previous night. Salmon, raw fish, seaweed, the whole deal. And so we ate, my brothers and I chose to settle for toast topped with ham as it seemed the least likely to make us sick the rest of the day. Then my host parents and I went on one of our famous hour long walks around the island, this time trudging up a snowy mountain that in turn overlooked the half frozen lake, it was gorgeous, and yet somehow all of forgot a camera....next time ! We then made it back home and guess what, time for lunch ! 30 minutes later we were seated at the table faced yet again with the leftovers of christmas dinner. More ham, more fish, more bread. Ham, bread, fish. Fish, bread, ham. Over and over for the next five days, and I believe it would have continued had we not run out of ham :/ It was indeed a sad day when we threw the ham bone into the trash. Hm, or not. So, now it is Sunday and my host mom is cooking. Yes, thats right, shes cooking. New food ! Hooray for chinese food, because the chinese don't like pork, which means no more ham ! And then I get to enjoy and ham-less week in Helsinki, at least I hope so....And so, for now, that is all I have to share. My Christmas was wonderful, I recieved so many lovely gifts that mean so much, but describing them would be difficult, so just know that I had a lovely time here. Next monday will mark my official fifth month here, it seems to have flown by, yet slugged on as well. I'm not sure what to think anymore, this ham is rotting my brainnnnn ! o_O until next week, happy new year :)

its almost christmas timeeeee.

two more days ! I'm so very excited :D This weekend was a blastttt. On saturday my family and I went over to the neighbors for his 53rd birthday, had some delicious food and just chatted and held the little 8 month old baby who was the cutest thing ever. His name was Eero and his sister, 2 or 3 years old, was hm. I actually don't remember her name...It meant "Lily of the Valley" though, and she was really cute as well. So that was fun. Then later that evening Sanelma [Arttu's girlfriend] and her parents came over. They didn't speak english to me, so it was a veryyyy long 3 hours of just sitting there not understanding. Raija tried to get them to speak, but they wouldn't. But oh well. Then on Sunday Annina and I met up and went out to lunch and planned out my trip to Helsinki [the capital city of finland] next week. We also got to look through my yearbook which she was really excited about, so that was fun. We ate at a place called Amarillo and it was delicious<3 Then my host parents picked me up and we drove over to another family's house, the same family that visited our house like two weeks ago. They had a really cute poodle, and their daughter Vera turned out to be really nice. She is almost 17, and at first it was really awkward trying to think of what to talk about, but after a while we had lots of fun and what not. Today I met up with Maria downtown for a promised and long awaited shopping trip. We went to almost every shop in Jyväskylä and had MAC donalds for lunch, courtesy of her father :] We found her a cute top that was on sale, woooo, and had lots of fun. I spoke finnish the whole day and it felt niceeee. Tomorrow I think is a nice free day and then on wednesday its.......CHRISTMAS ! woooo:] Yes, finns celebrate it on the 24th...But I'm really excited for it. There are probably 8 packages under the tree right now, more than half of which are for me, from the sainpalo's and Pastor Jim and Sonna, and my family. So I'm kind of confused if this family does the whole "giving presents" thing...maybe its a last minute sort of thing...I dunno :D Wishing you a very merry christmas and a wonderful new year ! Hyvää Joulua !

Declan Galbraith

I recently came upon his videos, hes pretty amazing.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h03iH-Bsvj8



He's 17 now, and still singing, but this is my favorite video :) when he was like 8 ? 9 ?

happy wednesday :)

indeed it was ! But lets talk aboutttt yesterday ! So I went to school around 9, had a very nice art lesson with Barbara again, stole an apple from the lunch room and thennnn went home ! I spent the rest of the day making christmas cards for all my friends, it was quite fun. Later that evening Raija's brother and his wife came over for coffee and desserts. His name was Petri, so I called him Uncle Pete :) They spoke english very well, but I tried out my finnish a few times as well. We ate some delicious food, chatted, and then they went home. So todayyyy [actually, this was wednesday, and today is friday, but whatever.] I went with Arvo in the morning to pick up my christmas package from the um, package place ? :) We got there and the man handed me my package and as I was walking out I noticed that I was leaving a trail of coffee as I walked. I assumed that one of the packages my mom sent me had opened, so it was sort of interesting. When I got home and out of the car, there was this little pile of coffee grounds on the seat, but at least our car smells yummy now ! :D I got home, opened my package to find a zilllllion bags of coffee, one which had opened a bit :] My yearbook, anninas christmas gift, some enchilada sauce and chiles, flossssss !, a present !, anddddddddddd JIFPEANUTBUTTER. mmm, I opened it and just stood in the kitchen breathing in its heavenly scent that hadn't touched my nose since last summmer. It is so delicious<3 Anyways, then I proceeded for the next two and a half hours to bake chocolate chip cookies ! I ended up making 127....hahah. But everyone loved them, and I gave them out to my friends for christmas. That evening I took the bus downtown and then another one up to Palokka and visited the Sainpalos ! Anna and Lauri weren't at home :/ But juuso, Maria, and Harri were. We ate some ice cream, chatttted for a bit, and then Juuso and Maria and I played this um penguin game that was reallycool. Juuso had to leave for a dance at his school, and Harri was going to an ice hockey game, so Maria and I had the house to ourselves ! We played the finnish version of Taboo, it was hard but quite helpful and we had lots of fun. And then we watched numerous videos of Anna Abreu, Anna Puusijärvi, and Koop Arponen, the finnish Idols winners. Haha, it was really cool :D And then Thursday ! I went to school for a meeting with my counselor lady at 12, had some glogi, a finnish christmas drink usually alcoholic, but not this time, it tastes like hot apple cider and its so gooood. I picked out my classes for next period, I'm taking Art [ahaha of course] Psychology, the Dance class that prepares us for the dances we have to do at Prom [waltz, tango, jenkka, uumpa (i dunno how to spell that one...)], and a religion class with Annina in finnish ! Fun fun. And then I start finnish lessons again, so that will also take up some of my time :D After that I had 7 hours to kill before youth group, but its pointless to go home cause it takes an hour to do so....So I hung out in the art room for like 5 hours, in the middle Annina and I went downtown, bought some lunch, and just sat and talked for a while. Then at 6 30 I walked up to the church for our christmas party at youthgroup. The church was so pretty ! Everyone was all dressed up [I wore a dress as wellll] and there were pretty lights and candles everywhere. And then we had an amazingggg worship session, it was so so good. We played a few games, learned some scottish/irish dance, etc. But it was so much fun. I didn't get home until pushing midnight though...but oh well :D And then today ! I've just been sitting around enjoying my day off of school :) Merrrrry Christmas !

15/12/08

Well we're half a month away from the end of 2008, does anyone else feel that it went by terribly fast ? Goodness, I've already been here more than four months, spencer is in junior high, jordan started college ! Before you know it I'll be graduating [hopefully] and oh my goodness, driving ! So my family got our christmas tree this weekend. My host dad recently joined the local hunting club so we went out with them to cut down our tree, from the middle of a forest ! It was his first "kill" :) Arttu's girlfriend, Sanelma, came along, shes really sweet. She hadn'treally spoken english to me before, so I kind of thought we just might never talk. But then, while tree hunting, she opened up and we had a lovely conversation :D She reminds me a lot of my brothers lovely girlfriend, Katy, not only is she super sweet, Arttu is lots nicer to his family when she's around. Maybe in a few years Arttu will eventually turn out like Jordan and just be nice all the time :D On sunday I went into town and met with Piia and Annina and we did some nice christmas shopping :) I didn't really accomplish much and I've resolved to just make cookies for everyone, inexpensive and delicious. Although, I'd like to give something more "from the heart" to a few of my friends, but I'm still stuck on the "what"....Any ideas ? Then we all headed up to church ! It just happened to be the christmas service, so it was really cute. The kids choir did a few numbers, which you can view here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Xti0v7aX0 ! After church I went home and enjoyed a fantastic meal of hamburger patties topped with delicious sauce and pineapple rings ! It was soooo good. My host parents are wonderous cooks. Today I went to school, enjoyed a fabulous art class with Barbara, the italian exchange student, she's hilarious :] I walked around town with Annina afterwards and then came home and watched part of spiderman 2 with Alvar. Tomorrow starts test week, so my week will be unbusy. Yet, I have lots to do....On wednesday I get to see/maybe collect my dress ! And then I'll head over to the Sainpalo's for a nice visit :D Maria sent me a text message today and asked how i was [all in finnish of course !], it was really cute. I told her that I was coming to her house on wednesday at six, mä tulen sun kotiin keskiviikona kuudelta, and she was excited. Then on thursday, I'm going to youth group and its our christmas party ! So that should be fun, I'll try and take pictures/video of some of it :) Also on Wednesday I'll be baking my cookies to give to my friends, because thursday is the last day that I'll see them before christmas. On saturday my host family is going to our neighbour's house to celebrate his birthday, and then Sanelma and her parents are coming over for coffee. And thatttt is it for news :) I have a few pictures on flickr as well ! www.flickr.com/ilovepaige345

"I want to know you more"

Tuntea sinut, kuulla sun äänesi
Haluan enemmän (haluan sua enämmän)
Koskettaa sua, nähdä sun kasvosi
Tuntea sinua (huhtea sua enämmän)

I want to know you,
I want to hear your voice
I want to know you more
I want to touch you,
I want to see your face
I want to know you more

We sang that in church last week :)

Laulaaaaaaaa.

Oh my goodness, so today was the big performance of the Sankta Lucia choir ! It was soooo great. We dressed up in Angel's robes and carried candles, and sounded really great. It was so cool. I have it on tape, but its on Annina's camera, so I have to wait until I can get it from her. Then, during the "christmas assembly" there were different skits and presentations and such. Belly dancers, the ghost of christmas past play, a band, etc. Andddd Annina and I sung three duets, Joulumaa, a finnish song about "christmas land", which went really well I think. Its a very pretty song, if you understand what its about....Then we sang Frosty the Snowman, once in Finnish, Hei Kuura Parta, but the words were so tiny on the paper and the lighting wasn't so good that I kind of botched it....but then we sang it in english too, and that one went a bit better :) Then at the end, Annina and I sang White Christmas, Valkea Joulu, once in finnish and then in english, and it was really pretty, and everyone clapped and yeah, it was so much funnnn. Then after the assembly was over the Sankta Lucia [Saint Lucy] choir walked down to the Library in town and sang on the stairs of that. We sang three songs, Sankta Lucia [its a swedish songs ! so we sang it in swedish !], then "Kuului Laulu" or Angels we have heard on high. In finnish, and then a traditional finnish song called "Heinilä Harkien Kaukalon". It was a very nice day :D I really do like singing, I guess I just didn't do it that often back home...hm. Tomorrow my family and I are going Christmas tree hunting ! And then that night I'm talknig with my real familyyyy, I'm so excited ! On sunday I'm meeting Annina and Piia downtown and we're going christmas shopping and then to church ! Next week is test week, so that means almost no school for me. And then we get out for Christmas break ! I'm possibly going to Helsinki with Annina for new years to visit her cousins, but I'm not really sure....And that is all of my news for now ! I'm sending out christmas cards on monday, they shoulddd get there by christmas, but if not, I'm sorry ! Hope you all have a wonderful weeekend ! Hyvää Joulua ! [merry christmas !]

Alvar

my little host brother who is 14, is so adorable ! So he has this weird bone thing that sticks out of his chest ? His mom and dad don't know what it is, but they're sort of worried. But he was just like "mom, I think my heart is just too big" it was so cute ! :] Haha and then my host mom, Raija, whose english isn't perfect, was all "aw, you are too sugar !" [meaning, he was sweet :)]. And yeah, it was adorable.

Tuesday

Okay, so promising to blog more, im going to do just that. Today is Tuesday. On sunday I had Annina come over to help me prepare for my hugeee Finnish final exam that was yesterday. We went over verbs and sentence formation and all the stuff that I had learned in my course and then hung out and tuned the tuneless guitar. It only holds a tune for about five minutes, and then its off again >:O But we had fun. My host dad, Arvo, cooked a delicious meal for lunch, and then Annina and I walked to the bus [20 minutes.] and went to church ! I reallly like the church here, it reminds me so much of church back home, so it was really nice. We had communion with real bread and real wine, the bread was yummy, the wine, not so much. After church I came home, but thanks to my 45 minute bus ride and 20 minute walk I didn't end up getting home until 7 30. We then watched the Finnish Idols with Arttu [16 year old host brother] and his girlfriend Sanelma, shes really pretty :] On monday I had my very large very stressful finnish exam that went surprisingly alright, I find out tomorrow what my score was, hopefully a 5. [the scale is 1-5] And then today was just a normal school day, without any finnish lessons. It was short and sweet, although I had to be at school at 8 so I had to take the 7 o'clock bus downtown and then book it to the school. It snowed all day today, so now we have new snow ! Its quite pretty, and soft, and such :) Tomorrow I have choir practice after school, two more practices on thursday, and then we perform on "Lucia päivää" or Lucy Day on friday. We sing at the school celebration, and then move downtown to the town library. We're trying to find someone to film it, so you'll probably get to see it ! I'm really excited for it, and then on thursday night I have a Rotary dinner and my host families are invited ! So I get to see the Sainpalo's again, and I'm really excited for that. In finland they have things called name days, where they just pick a slew of names and dedicate it to one day of the year. So today was Anna's name day, so I texted her :) This weekend my family and I are going Christmas tree hunting ! Yay :D I'll take pictures so you can see this wonderfully exciting event. But nowww, my host brother and his girlfriend are here, so I'm gunna get out of their way ! Happy tuesday :)

ensi vikko.

last week. So I got back from Lapland on wednesday morning around 12 30 am. The trip was really great, there were some good parts and bad parts, but all in all, it was wonderful. The bus ride took eleven hours for me, 18 for others, and the first one was quite interesting...But bus rides always are :] It was really odd at first to speak english so much, but we all got used to it. When we got to Muonio we all checked into our rooms, and I was rooming with Hope [Ohio] Cindy [Florida], Jenny [Florida], and Stephanie [California]. I was apprehensive at first, but we actually had buckets of fun. Our room, unlike most of the others, had a small sauna, but we basically only used it to dry our clothes and make our room smell better (: We went reindeer sleigh riding, snow shoeing, husky sledding, and ice sculpturing ! I would have gone skiing, but it wasw crazy expensive, so Bailey and I played in the snow ! It was probably 3 feet deep, and realllly soft. The things they call mounatins are actually just large hills, the highest point in Lapland is about 1 km or 1000 feet high. So yeah, not very big, but it was nice. Somehow on the last night all four of my roommates and I locked our two room keys INTO the room, so we were locked out. We had to split up and go sleep in the extra beds with the tutors, it was interesting, but fun. The Rotary man stood outside our door yelling "OPEN THE DOOR" at it, it was really hillarious. He seemed to think someone was inside....odd. The trip home we stopped in Rovaniemi to meet the REAL santa claus ! It was exciting, although he was a bit creepy. I wanted to buy something, but nothing really caught my eye, so I decided to buy a colouring book and crayons ! The whole bus ride home Cindy, David [Germany], and I all coloured cute christmasy pictures :D So yeah, my weeekend was fabulous. I was then picked up by my new host dad Arvo and we drove to my new house in Muuratsalo. I live 1 km, 20 minute walk, from my bus stop and then the bus takes a 45 minute trip into Jyväskylä, so it kindddd of sucks. But I'm getting used to it. Each night Arvo, Raija [my host mom] and I have gone on 5 km, or 1 hour, walks. Its really nice, and feels really good. The island I live on is really quiet and peaceful, its so cute. I'll take pictures soon ! My family is really sweet, and funny ! They get my sarcasm, and throw it back, so its been lots of fun. And my host brothers TALK. It took Lauri and Juuso at least a month before they started any conversation with me, but Alvar [14] asks how my day was and Arttu [16] and I have pleasant conversatoins about all sorts of things. So it has been really great :) So my life is wonderous and I'm loving it. Hope all is well with you !

Youtube

www.youtube.com/user/jocey846 ! I have new videos from my lapland trip, most of them are pretttty hillarious, so have fun :D

no internet

so yeah, my new house is awesome, but i dont have wirelss internet, so my time online has been cut. im acutally liking it this way though, i spend more time with them, and im reading books again, it feels good :) so yeah, my blogs will again be few and far between im afraid :/ im posting from the library now, so ill try and do that as much as i can, but i only get 15 minutes online....have a nice decemberrrr !

my last night

at the sainpalo's :/ I leave tonight at 1 a.m. for Lapland ! Its a ten hour bus ride, and all the exchange students in Finland will be there, so I get to see all my old friends from language camp :] We're there for five days at a place called Muonio if you want to look it up on the map. Its really far north, in the arctic circle :O I'm gunna attempt skiing, although I don't know how good I'll be at that....wish me luck ! I'm getting back on wednesday, but I don't know if I'll have internet connection up there, so I might not be in touch with anyone until Thursday day...This past week was really nice, I went to Youth Group again last night, it was realllllly good. There was this band there and they played these wicked long songs, but they were really cool, so I'm really liking it there. I missed my bus afterwards though, so I had to sit outside [remember, its like -2 degrees celcius outside, which is like 23 ? degrees farenheit [spelling ?] for a half hour until the next bus came. And this whole week I've had choir practice everyday, and then today we sang in the assembly for the first sunday or advent :] It was really cool, and we walked in holding candles and all the lights were out, and yeah, it was pretty awesome. Sometime in december we'll be performing downtown at the christmas celebration, singing both finnish and swedish songs ! I've got the swedish song down pat now, it's pretty exciting. Right now, literally, I'm making brownies [well, i'm trying, i'm not sure if they're going to turn out or not....:/] and then later on today I'll make enchiladas ! We're having sort of a day late mexican thanksgiving going away party ! Anna's brothers' family and her parents are coming over, and then later on we're having, yet again, their favorite american dessert, Fanta Floats which they have now been deemed :] So that should be fun. I had my oral exam in Finnish lessons today, Chet and I had to talk with each other in finnish for two minutes. Our script was pretty good I guess, we didn't want to just do the basics, so we worked on including some new stuff as well, and it went alright. I shipped out my family's christmas box on wednesday, along with a little package for my favorite non-related family, I'll write letters sometime next week, so they should be in [most of] your hands before christmas ! Anyways, the brownies smell good, I think I'll take them out, have a nice weekend !

niin suuri, hän on

laulakaa niin suuri hän on
pian kaikki nähdä saa
niin suuri hän on.

how great is our god
sing with me how great is our god
and all will sing
how great is our god

we sang that in church today :] yep, I went. I wanted to see what the sunday services were like and they were so much like home, it felt so right. They offer english translation as well, so it makes it so much better because I know what they're talking about. I'mreally excited to be back in church finally, and I plan on going as often as I can. I asked Annina to go with me, and she gladly accepted, so I'm hoping she'll go with me as well, I think it's a really good opportunity for both of us :) Yesterday my family had Petra's family over for desserts and coffee, I made orange soda floats, everyone seemed to like them. Petra, Pinja, Maria, Panu [Petra's older brother, he's maybe 4 months younger than me] and I played flashlight hide and go seek. I was really bad at it....but it was fun (: And today there was a huge snowstorm, there's like 5 inches of snow outside and its still coming down ! It's this crazy wind snow stuff, its really think and light and fluffy [terrible for snowballs or igloos, but really nice to walk in] and sometimes if the wind gets trapped it makes like snow tornadoes ! Crazy :P Um, I attempted to video some of it, but its reallllly dark and I don't think you can see anything, but you can certainly try: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOhLaLApOHM. Tomorrow I have school and choir practice in the morning. Same with Tuesday, I also have finnish lessons and chill night. Wednesday I have finnish lessons and school, of course. Thursday [thanksgiving in the U.S., but not in Finland] I have a rotary meeting at which the exchange student from last year who went to the states is going to be speaking, and then after that is Youth Group. And on Friday I have finnish lessons and then that evening I'm baking dinner for my host family as a farewell dinner/thanksgiving. I'm making enchiladas, Juuso begged me :), and I'm gunna see if I can make a pumpkin pie as well as brownies (: I thought a lot about my senior year today, and I'm kind of scared that I'm gunna forget how to study and pass tests and do homework next year, so I went and took all of the practice questions for the SAT online. I did alright with reading and writing, but I am terrible at math....I'm gunna have to work on that. And then on friday I leave at 2 am for Lapland [northern finland, in the arctic circle !]. It's a ten hour bus trip, but a lot of my friends from language camp are on my bus, so it should be fun :] We're there for five days, and when I get back I go to the Viertola's ! I'm sad to leave the Sainpalo's, but also excited to move in with the Viertola's. Maria and I went Ice Skating this morning, it was quite fun, although I'm really not very good, but thats okay, she just laughs at me :] Okei, well, goodnight!

JYP

the Jyväskylän ice hockey team here, called JYP, lost their game today to Kuopio, a nearby city :/ I had the wonderful opportunity to work the concession stands which I've done once before, and it was so much fun ! I took Petra, my neighbor friend, with me, she helps me out when I don't understand and we had a blast. I worked with three other girls, two of them went to my school, so they were fun to be with as well :] I understood so much of the finnish people were saying, and I was able to talk to them and everything, I even got to work the cash register ! So yeah it was really fun, plus when it was over, it was snowing ! Big flakes :] It's so pretty. Since I had such a good time at the church yesterday, I decided that I really wanted to go to the sunday service. I haven't been to church on a Sunday since I left home, and I really really miss it. So I got up the courage, and decided that I'm going to go. I don't really wanna go alone though, so I took an even bigger step and asked Annina to come with me, I was really afraid she'd say no, for a few reasons, but by God's grace, she said yes ! We're both nervous about going, because we're both new, but I really believe that God is calling me to do this, and take this step, and I'm really glad Annina is doing it with me. I just pray that it will be a good experience, and that I can keep going week after week. Tomorrow Petra's family is coming over for dinner, so that should be fun :] I'm making orangesicle floats ! [you know, orange soda on ice cream?] My family liked them the last time I made them, so it should be a hit again ! My english is getting progressively worse, so please bear with me these next few months. Today I was talking to Petra and said "Not wanting to make a positive example of yourself, eh?" Which basically makes no sense. But oh well :] So yeah, have a nice weekend !

and i've finally found

what i've been looking for. A CHURCH. :D It's called VaapaKirkko in finnish which translates directly into "Evangelical Free Church". I went to their youth group tonight with my friend Jenna from school, there were probably 100 people there, we sang lots of songs [half of them were in english and ones that I knew !]. There was a message given, and they have these really cool headphones available, in which you can hear the english translation ! Ah, its perfectttt. A lot of the kids there go to my school, and I met this cool girl named Sara who loves to speak english (: So yeah, it was a realllly fun night, and I'm really looking forward to going back there again next thursday. One of the boys there thought I was 22 ? But he was adorable :] And then there was this one kid who spoke finnish and spanish, and really terrible english, but it was so cute ! He kept offering me more food, haha. And Jenna's older brother is really cute too, and very nice and has good english :] And this boy from my english and spanish classes goes there, Robert. So yeah, I had the time of my life there, it was so good, and such an answered prayer. Before that I had my second dress appointment, and my dress is gorgeous ! I don't know how to describe it but it's so so pretty, I'm so happy. It's not finished yet, but its getting there. I am so excited for it ! Tomorrow will be short, maybe I'll find something to do in the evening :] It snowed again last night, so we have about 2.5 inches out there. It's so so pretty, you can see pictures here: www.flickr.com/ilovepaige345 and video ! here: www.youtube.com/user/jocey846. So check those out (= That's it for now ! Adios <3

youtube

so i forgot to mention that i have a youtube account ! i only have 3 videos up right now, but theyre cute :] http://www.youtube.com/user/jocey846 haveee fun !

i can't speak english !

So i just finished up giving four presentations about myself and the US and what not to 8th 9th and 11th graders, and have come to the conclusion that my english is far worse that I thought it was. I sound like a finn trying to speak english, its terrible. Anyways, on a lighter note, I just opened a wonderful package from my favorite non-related family, the wonderful wilsons :] Thank you so much for you [absolutely amazing] card and cider, I haven't had hot apple cider in so long, I'm so excited for it ! And yes, I cried, of course :D I'll try and put my replies in the mail tomorrow, if not then, then on friday. And I will definitely try to blog more often, I'm really sorry about falling short....Anyhow, I have one more presentation to give today, then I go downtown for Finnish lessons, which I leave early to go to choir practice at my school [I'm singing finnish and swedish songs, in finnish and swedish ! go me !] and then I have to leave that early to go to my first badminton tournament, [I joined the league at my school !]. So today is rather busy :] Thanks for reading, you're all in my prayers !

november fifteeth

was probably the greatest day of my entire life :] So this weekend I attended Maata Näkyvissä which is the largest christian festival in all of Scandinavia. It was held in Turku, a city about 3 hours from my house at an Ice hockey arena [obviously, there was no ice.]. We left on friday around 1 30 from Jyväskylä and arrived in Turku around seven [we stopped for like 45 minutes at a gas station/mini mall in the middle of the trip.]. I went with Annina and her friend Roosa, the bus ride there was really fun :] There were around 11,000 people at this event, so it was packed ! Friday night we ate our evening snack [bread, butter, cheese, and yoghurt] and then went to the arena and listened to some music. After the bands played we had a hugeeee communion with real wine and bread, it was really cool. There were booths set up upstairs with merchandise and what not, cd's, t-shirts, etc. The night ended around 11 and then we headed over to one of the local schools where we would be spending the nights at. There were probably 200 of us in the school that I stayed in and the girls all slept in the gym, the boys were split up into different classrooms. It wasn't too bad sleeping in there, although it was impossible to go to bathroom cause the lines were so long. But that night Annina, Roosa, and I ate a delicious cake thing that Roosa baked for me for my birthday ! It was so sweet :] In the morning we got up and got dressed and went to the arena for breakfast around 8. We had disgusting porridge that made all our tummy's feel weird, but the bread and yoghurt was good :] The first set of bands to play were really popular finnish bands, some of them were quite good. Kraka, this finnish indie band, was probably my favorite out of them and did a duo-show with this finnish rapper. So there were two drummers, four guitarists, and two bassists on stage, it was amazing ! After the first set of music finished, the security cleared out the building so they could clean and such for the next set. So we all traveled over to the other building for lunch. Well, most of us. Annina and I, and others, got right back in line to be let back in in an hour, skipping lunch. We wanted a good place in the mosh pit for The Rain [a very popular finnish band], and we ended up getting 6th row :] So that was cool. After them there were workshops and studios set up with all different kinds of things to do. Annina and I went to listen to Pastor Dien Taylor from the Bronx, New York City. It was in english so I was in heaven. He talked about what heaven was like and why we should be excited for it, it was really cool. When he was done Annina and I wanted to talk to him and get his autograph and such, and as we were standing in line Annina turned around quickly and said "OH MY GOSH, LOOK BEHIND YOU." And there, standing two meters away, was Sanctus Real. The band. From Ohio. I had known they were going to be here at this festival, but they were standing right next to me ! So I ran over to Matt and asked him to sign my one dollar bill. He was really conffused at first, wondering where a Finn would get a dollar bill, but he figured out I must be from the states. So we got to talking and I met the rest of the band [PETE !] and we talked all about life and how great of an opportunity we both had, to be here in Finland witnessing to others God's great works and everything, it was so cool. Their manager, Curt, offered to take our picture, which you can see here: http://flickr.com/photos/ilovepaige345/3035839558/. So it was basically my dream come true and I was pretty much the happiest person on the planet. After they had to leave we walked over to the other building to get our evening snack [more bread and yogurt !] and this time we stood next to these rather good looking boys :] I kind of always bring attention to myself because I speak english, so after a while the boys finally asked Annina and Roosa where I was from and how old we were and where we were from in Finland. We talked for like 45 minutes and they were both really cool. One was named Roope, which is pronounced like rrr-ohh-pay :) When we were walking out I was talking to the girls and said something like "I really want to meet someone new." And right after that these two guys walked up and pretended to be from a TV channel and were like interviewing us and all this stuff. It was so cute ! At first we tried to convince them that we were all American, but it didn't last for long. I was soon singled out as the American and then they found out it was my birthday so they sang to me ! Since it was in english, everyone in the room turned to look :] We stayed and chatted for another half an hour, talking about such random things, and even making up this crazy dance ! It was so much fun (: We then realized that we needed to hurrry up and go get in a line in order to be first row for Sanctus Real. We stood in the freezing cold for 45 minutes, but it was well worth it. We were front and center, and it was so amazing. When Sanctus Real was about to come out, one of the hosts of the event came out and since he knew that the band didn't understand finnish, he told all of the crowd that we were going to play a joke on the band. He told them all to have their cameras ready and that when Sanctus Real came out on stage, to not make a sound. And then, once they sang the first line, to scream all at once and take a picture. It was actually really cool, but I don't think Sanctus Real got the joke...but it was hillarious from our point of view :] Their concert was amazing, and afterwords Annina and I ran out to go get autographs ! Again ! When we got back up there, they treated us like old pals, saying things like "oh hey ! nice to see you again !" And then Pete, my favorite member, told the fill-in guitarist, "Hey, this girl is from Bremerton, Washington ! She's so cool, and its her birthday !" Annina was great, and talked to them all. I told her she had to because her english was so amazing, and at the end Matt, the lead vocalist, said to her "Hey, you're a Finn right ?" She replied, "Yeah, I'm Finnish." And then he said, "Wow, cause you have reallly good english for a Finn." She lit up like a kid in a candy store, it was great :] And since Pete had already signed my dollar, I asked him to sign my hand ! :D Earlier in the day I found a half of a one dollar bill that wasn't mine on the ground of the arena. I couldn't think of how else an american dollar would have gotten in there, so I wrote Sanctus Real a note on the back saying something like "Hey, I found this dollar and thought it might be yours :] But thanks for making my 17th birthday FABULOUS. Your songs are so powerful and touching, God Bless you all. Jocelyn [WA]" And they really liked it :) So that was my birthday and it was pretty much the best day ever.

Sunday, the last day of the festival was just spent buying a Sanctus Real shirt, taking loads of pictures, and sitting because our feet hurt so bad ! One of the most popular activities at this festival was the "FREE HUGS" sign that almost everyone made for themselves. I kind of wanted to join in on the fun so I made myself a sign that said "HUG ME ! I'm American." And I got lots of hugs :] Because Finns are shy to use english they kind of just walked up to me and held open their arms, but it was sweet. The bus ride home was nice, I just slept :) When we got back to Jyväskylä it was SNOWING ! We got about 2.5 centimeters, and its so pretty ! So that was fun. I came home to numerous emails wishing me a happy birthday, so thank you to all who wished me one, I had the best one ever. One girl asked me "So what did you get for your birthday ?" And I replied "Sanctus Real." And she was like "Oh, like the CD ?" And I said in return "No, like the band :)" ahah, it was such a good day ! And a really nice weekend. I'm going to Juuso's school on Wednesday to talk to the 8th graders, and on thursday I have a dress appointment, and then on Friday I'm going to the Ice Hockey arena with Petra to work the concession stands again ! So that should be fun. I leave next weekend for Lapland, and then when I get back I'll go to the Viertola's house. I don't know their address, but you can always just write to the Sainpalo's address and they'll get it to me, they won't mind (: So anyways, hoping you're having a lovely november, mine has been so great ! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers :]

so yeah

It's been a whileee. I'm totally fine, I do hope you weren't worried. I've just been crazy busy, and to tell you the truth kind of forgot about my blog...sorry ! I'm trying to immerse myself, in doing so, I sort of let this slip. So the past week was swell, we finished up our second "period" in school and this week is test week. I don't really have any tests to take, so I basically have this week off...Most people say that I'm lucky, but I don't really like it, sitting at home with nothing to do but watch pointless tv or surf the net. So sometimes I just go to school anyways and sit at a table and play card games for a couple of hours :] So last monday I had my first dress appoointment with Raila [i think...] and she seems really sweet and really good at what she does. So I'm confident my dress will turn out wonderfully. We just went over the basic design, took measurements [oh boy !], and then scheduled my next appointment for the 20th of November. Tuesday I skipped school and went instead to talk to 6 different 6th grade classes at Maria's school. They were much easier to talk to then the 3rd graders because they understood a lot more. I brought in my magazines, my passport, some american money, and some pins that I had left over from language camp. They seemed to enjoy it and some of them were brave enough to ask me questions ! So that was fun. On thursday I attened the Rotary meeting, only this time it was our 50th Anniversary celebration of the club. So we had it at the local community hall thats really exquisite and old. We got there around 5 45, and as I walked in I soon realized I was compltely underdressed and boy did I feel stupid. I had no idea it was such a big event...whoops. I didn't really have anyone to talk to, I didn't know anyone there, so I hung out by the coat racks until Martti [my youth exchange officer] came in. Once he did we were told by the president that we needed to wait for a bit while the dinner tables were being set up. So we stood around talking and toasting champagne. After about an hour we were finally able to go inside. We sat down and I got to sit across the table from my Principal, Jorma, at my school. He's a former president of my Rotary club :] They started off with one 45 minute message from our President, all in finnish of course. Then we had our starters, some salad and potatoes. After we were done we were entertained by a finnish soprano singer. She was really good :) After she was done we were then entertained by the cities choral group, they were also quite good. When they left we then listened to another 45 minute speech from someone important I presume...When he was done we had our main course of Lamb, potatoes, and bread. Afterwards they served seconds ! But I'm pretty sure lamb is not my food of choice...so I just kept drinking water, talking to myself in my head. When our dishes had been cleared we then listened to two back to back 50 minute speeches from the President of all of Rotary in Finland, and then some man who was probably important as well. After these speeches we had this interesting side snack thing, thronberry sauce on spongey cake....not bad, not great. After that the President of my club presented ribbons to three men, although I'm not sure why...I asked Martti, but I didn't really understand what he was saying. So afterwards we had dessert, some type of cake, and coffee and chatted for about an hour. I didn't really take part in the chatting, there isn't much to talk about when they don't speak english so well...When Martti finally said it was time to leave it was 11 30 at night. It was the longest 6 hours of my entire life I believe...but I survived ! So that was my thursday. The weekend wasn't bad, I played badminton with Harri Maria and Juuso on saturday ! It was really quite fun, Juuso and I dominated :] OH ! IT SNOWED ! on saturday ! Nothing stuck, but it snowed the whole day. And now its sunny...this weather is bi-polar. So yeah, that was basically my whole weekend I think. I got to talk to my parents and brothers on sunday and then on Monday and Tuesday I took my english tests. I think I did okay...haha. They were fun :) And now today I have finnish lessons that I need to get going for. Sorry for the delay in posting, I am very fine, just busy. Thanks for reading :D

kiwi night

Goodness, I really fell out of my "blogging" habit...Anteeksi ! Uh, well I guess I'll re-cap again for you :] I left off on the 18th, so lets talk about Sunday, if I can remember what I did. Which as of right now, I can't....Hm, sorry, guess it wasn't too exciting ! So monday :] Well, I had the day off of school because my school decided to extend the holiday 'til Tuesday, but I was also invited by Maria's english teacher to come and talk to her students. My first class was a class of fifth graders, so they actually understood most of what I was talking about, but then I had four classes of third graders who have such a small englsih vocabulary, it was really difficult to come up with a half an hour's worth of talking that they could actually understand. I mostly talked about my pets and my family, as well as my favorite foods and colors, so it wasn't too bad. But I'm actually going back this tuesday to talk to four classes, this time all sixth graders ! So it should be quite fun really, because they'll be able to ask and answer questions. So afterwards I went home and about an hour later I met up with Chet. We climbed up this big hill thing, which had a really gorgeous view from the top, and attempted to make a campfire ! It was fun, and we were there for like two hours, making like three fires, and gathering numerous amounts of wood which we didn't end up using at all...but it was fun. On tuesday I only had one class, but it was also Jason's goodbye chill night, so Annina and I worked on his presents and what not after school. The chill night was actually a bit awkward, because nothing was planned, so we kind of just stood around telling stories for the first hour and a half. And then we played signs until 7. It was a good party, root beer and all !, sad to see him go though :/ But this tuesday we get to meet the new missionary ! I'm excited for that :D Um, wednesday. I had psychology. And then at 3 Maria, her friend Sara, and I had a movie day ! We watched Brother Bear :] In finnish, but Lauri was kind enough to put on english subtitles for me (: I was supposed to have a dress appointment this day, but it got rescheduled for this Monday [tomorrow]. So on thursday I really didn't do much at all. In the evening I went to the EuroMarket with Anna, just so I could get out of the house. It was fun though, I love grocery shopping. On friday I didn't have any classes at all, but I still went to school and sat at a table and played cards by myself for an hour and a half before lunch. Yeah, fun fun :] Um, I came home and took a shower and then Maria and I went out for pizza at the local pizza arcade place. Then that night I worked the concession kiosk at the Hockey Hall ! It was the parent night for Lauris team, where the parents of the players work in the concession stands as part of community service. But Anna had gone to Tampere this weekend, so they asked if I would do it. I took Petra along with me, to translate and help out :], and we got to work with Julia, a girl from my psychology class ! It was so much fun ! And I actually understood what people were telling me and ordering, I was so proud (: I can't wait to do it again. And then today, I went on a girl scout trip with Maria. We drove about an hour away and then walked the circumference of an island for four hours, randomly stopping to cook food or drink something. It was fun, a bit boring because I had no one to talk to, but not too bad. We got home around 3, I showered and got dressed and then took a bus downtown where I met Annina. We then bussed to Jyskä to Piia's house ! We played this game called "knock-out" for a bit and then we went inside, ate popcorn and kiwis while playing yahtzee ! it was really fun, I love going to Piia's house :] And now here I am, about ready to go to sleep. Tomorrow I meet my second host family, the Viertola's ! I move to their house at the end of november, I'm both excited and nervous at the same time, but I'm sure it'll be fine. Have a nice night, sorry for the long drought...And congrats to Micah, my littlest brother, who just won ASB Vice President for his Elementary School !

i don't even remember...

Oi! It has been quite a long time since my last post, sorry to all of you who have checked back for feedback on my whereabouts, life has been crazy, but good :] I think I left off on Thursday of last week, so I guess I shall move on to Friday, if I can remember what I did...I had finnish lessons that morning, and I rode my bike to them, taking the long way around the lake. It's awfully pretty, I hope I get to do it a bit more before it gets too cold :] Afterwards I rode home and ate some lunch and then made plans to go on a biking adventure with my dear canadian friend Chet. It was really fun actually, although Juuso took the bike that I normally ride so I had to settle for the single gear, no hand brakes, flat tired, too tall bike :] I somehow managed to lock the bike in place when I parked at the Euromarket to wait for Chet, but when I tried to unlock it again, I couldn't seem to figure out how. So here I am, standing with Chet, trying to figure out how to unlock the stupid thing. We finally figure it out after about 15 minutes of flipping the entire bike over trying to see how it locked, and so off we went just riding all over Jyväskylä for 2 hours. It was really fun :] I don't really remember what else I did that night, I don't think anything too special...Um. Saturday. Well, Annina has this friend Roosa who lives about 150 km northwest from here, and she is coming with us to the festival that I'm going to on my birthday weekend ! She came up to Jyväskylä on Saturday however, so I got to meet her. We went shopping all day on saturday and then went to Chill Night to hang with the guys. We played card games, scum and BS, but they were both really fun :] Roosa was really sweet so I'm really looking forward to this festival thing in Turku. On sunday I didn't do much in the morning, but around 1 or so, Petra and Pinja came over and we hung out and ate some apple pie and ice cream that Anna made for us. At 4 we all left to go see Lauri's hockey game which was really fun actually. There was this one annoying lady who wouldn't stop clapping though. And it was really really loud clapping, and even when nothing happened she would just sit there and clap for literally five minutes straight. After the game was over Petra and I walked over to the swimming hall where Maria and Pinja had lessons, but instead of swimming she and I watched the Water Polo game that was going on that night ! There was a finnish team [of course] but the other team we couldn't really figure out where they were from. Some of the boys had finnish names, but the coach spoke broken english to them, and then like spanish or something to the rest of them ! We decided that they must have been the english speaking Spaniards living in Finland. :D Well, they won, and the finnish team lost, but it was really fun to watch :] Monday ! I didn't have much else to do so I went downtown and spent the day shopping with Annina and Roosa again ! At 2 30 we met up with Piia who begged us to go with her on a "date" with her ex-boyfriend. I guess it was just like a catching up sort of thing, and it turned out to be really awkward for Annina, Roosa, and I because we just sat in the coffee house, listening to the conversation that Piia and her ex-boyfriend were having. But oh well, she was glad that we came along :] I don't think I did anything afterwards, just hung out at home :] So on tuesday, I woke up and baked cookies ! I found out that it was Petra's birthday, LAST tuesday, so I told her I'd make her cookies :] That afternoon Anna also took Maria, Juuso and I to the new plantetarium in Kokkola, about 15 km away. It was really cool, but kind of boring, it was all in Finnish. I mean, I tried really hard to figure out what they were saying, but I ended up sleeping through the last half...Juuso slept too me so I didn't feel toooo bad...Afterwards Anna took me to Chill Night and Juuso to his hockey game. Apparently word got out that we planned on baking at this chill night because when I got there the placed was packed ! There were probably 20 people there, compared to our usual 6 or 7. But it was a lot of fun, we baked butterscotch haystacks, with wayyy too much sugar, it was kind of nasty. But Annina and Roosa had baked delicious Pulla, and of course, my cookies :] Then we played Signs, which is sort of like the name game we played in youth group a lot. Yanno, the "belle loves stewie" game ? But instead of names you have a certain sign that you have to pass around without the person in the middle catching you. It was really confusing at first, but was fun when it got going :] I woke up on Tuesday crazy excited for the day because....duh duh duh....I was going bowling with Piia, Annina, andddd Joonas :D So I was super excited. Plus, afterwards, Annina and I were going to go to Piia's where she was cooking us Italian food and then we were going to camp out in her backyard inside a tent ! But in the morning Anna also asked if we could go material shopping for my dress because there was a store that was having a sale on materials ! So we went to this little shop downtown and I found the most gorgeous green, satin material ever. I bought uh, 5m ?, of it I think...But it's really pretty and I'm going to go get measured and what not by the lady who is making it sometime this week ! After we bought my material Anna drove me to Piia's where I dropped off my stuff and met up with Annina. And then Piia drove us over to the bowling alley which along the way we picked up Joonas :] We went bowling, which was pretty much the same [and get this, the backdrop of the lanes was the exact same as the one at All Star Lanes in Silverdale!] But anyways, here you pay for the hour in bowling and just bowl as many times as you want for as much as you payed for. So we bowled for an hour, in which I came in last place :/ But successfully bowled both right and left handed, so go me ! Piia threw an absolutely perfectly straight ball every single time, if only she threw it faster, she would have gotten strike after strike. Joonas had this crazy bowling technique, but it ended up getting him second ! And Annina somehow managed to come up with a bunch of talent in the second game and surpassed me :/ But I had loads of fun, so that was cool. Then Piia said that I could invite Joonas to dinner as well, so I did, and he came ! While Piia cooked, the rest of us attempted to set up the tent on Piia's porch ! It was quite hillarious, but fun none the less. And then we all sat down to eat the most delicious pasta everrr. I swear, Piia should be a cook. After eating Joonas ran home, literally, and the girls and I piled into the car and drove over to one of Piias' friends' house. Along the way the girls asked to listen to Mikey's new cd which I had been telling them about. So we listened to that as we drove to Sara's house. They really liked it, as do I, and you should definitely check out his music. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=103009162 When we got to Sara's house we walked inside and talked for a bit and then spent the next hour singing ! Sara played the piano while the girls and I sang along with it. We sang disney songs, Finnish songs, Avril Lavinge, you name it. It was super fun and I recorded a bunch of it, so I'll get those up soon enough :] After our singing, Sara made us pancakes and then the girls and I headed back home to Piia's. We set up camp inside our tent, enjoyed some pulla and rasberry cakes, and then climbed inside the tent. Piia's parents kept telling us to put on more and more layers of clothing because it was so cold outside, so we looked like snowmen when we were finally allowed outside. We stayed up talking for quite some time, about all sorts of things, the usualy "Tent talk". In the morning Piia's mom made us eggs and hotdogs on toasted buns, and Piia made tea :] It was so cute ! I loved every minute of it. I however, was leaving that mornig with my family to Konnevesi so I had to be home around 10. After quickly packing some clothes and my toothbrush, Juuso, Maria, Anna and I piled into the car and headed for Kuopio, about 2 hours away. We stopped at this poshy hotel, went in, had a buffet style lunch, and then went to the pool inside. Only, the word pool doesn't exactly fit. There were four pools, two hot tubs, and a water slide ! One of the pools was actually located outside, but you had to swim though a tunnel from the inside to get there. The Finnish people just love going from hot to cold...crazy ! After about 2 hours of swimming, we went back inside, went to sauna [of course], and then showered and left ! We then backtracked our way to Konnevesi, about an hours drive, and finally arrived at Harri's parents summer house :] We spent the next two nights there, mostly spent playing hide and go seek or chasing the dog around. Juuso and I took a couple bike rides, and I've found that he's actually a pretty cool kid for being 13, and has surprisingly good english :] So it was really fun hanging out with him all weekend. Anyways, so we just got home today, and I am definitely ready for some sleep. Although, I'm waking up at 3 to watch my redsox hopefully win :] The game last night was absolutely terrifying, but so gooood ! So yeah, tomorrow I'm not doing much, just planning Jason's going away present because hes leaving next monday, like for good. He's going home to the states, so Tuesday is his last chillnight, and I need to make him a gift. Plus, on Monday, I've been invited to visit Maria's english teacher and talk to all her classes ! So I need to work on what to say to a bunch of third graders who can't understand me :] Fun fun ! Anyways, hope you enjoyed this super long post ! Hyvää yotä :D

nelkytnelja - 44

It is indeed thursday evening, and yes, I am aware of the fact that I have not blogged in four days. My blogs might actually become fewer and farther inbetween I'm sad to say. But I can still recap the last four days for you, so here goes ! Monday. Let me think, what did I do monday. Hm, well I went to school, nothing to exciting happened there, I played cards in the hallway with Barbara, the Italian exchange student. After school I went with Anna and Maria over to Maija's house for Ennas', the little baby that we went to the zoo with, first birthday ! It was really cute, Enna is a really adorable baby, so she was fun to play with. And Maija is really sweet, so shes nice to talk to :] I think that might have been all that was exciting on monday...sorry for the lack of details. We ate some rather delicious pulla [poo-la] that Anna had made that morning, its a very traditional finnish sweet bread, and it usually has cinnamon inside it and sugar on top, its really tasty. I'll learn the recipe and make it for you when I get back ! Okay so tuesday. I only had english that day, and it was the first class. But there was an extrafriendly wasp in our english class, and yes, I was freaking out. I hate bees, but so do a lot of other people, so I wasn't the only one ! After english I came home for a bit because I didn't have another class until finnish lessons at two. I watched some TV, made some leftovers for lunch, and took a shower. Then I headed back downtown and went to finnish lessons :] We did the basic stuff, just learning different parts of speech and grammer rules and what not, nothing too special. Afterwards I walked on over to the Mormon church for chill night :] At first it was just Annina, Jason, Stewie [the new guy, his real name is Derek, but his last name is Stewart. And I call him Stewie because Annina first told me that Stewart was his first name. and yeah, that was pointless, but you get the idea !]. So we just talked about different things and about the fact that our school celebration had 15 articles over the course of the week written about it in various newspapers and magazines, and guess what ! Annina and I were in one ! I'm getting a copy of it on saturday, so I'll mail it to my parents and hopefully they'll show it around :] We didn't get to talk to any reporters, but we're in the picture ! And then there's an article with my friend Sam in it, I'll send that as well. So ask them to see it if you'd like to. So, after talking about how popular we were in Jyväskylä two other girls showed up and we made popcorn ! It was really dry, and not very salty, but it wasn't tooooo bad. And it was "USA" popcorn ? I dunno. After a while Mike and Maiju showed up and we all decided to play badminton ! We sort of had a tournament going on, but it kind of died after a while. Annina and I didn't do half bad ;] I went home around 6 30, ate some delicious tacos, I think I showered again, and then I went to bed. Moving on. I have a late start on Wednesdays, so that was nice. I went to school around 9 30 so that I could chat with people during our break before having psychology. Psychology was fun, we talked about heredity and genes and what not, interesting stuff. Afterwards we had lunch, which looked terrible but didn't taste too bad. It was some sort of fish soup I guess...I dunno, but we had this really good sort of "sour rye bread" stuff that was amazing ! And I found out we had it at home too ! Crazy. After lunch Annina and I both had a break so we were gunna head downtown, just to walk around. On our way out we ran into Piia ! So she came down with us as well :] She just got back from a one week trip in Italy, visiting her boyfriend. [he's finnish, he just moved to italy ? or something like that...] So she told us all about her trip and the wonderfulness of it all, and she brought us back Italian chocolate ! She's so sweeeet. After a while they both had to return to their classes and I set off for finnish lessons ! They were in the tiny rooms again, but it was fun all the same. I didn't do anything that evening, except go for a bike ride, and other random things around the house, so theres not too much to tell about I don't think. So let's talk about today ! I had psychology and english this morning, fun classes :] And I have fallen in love with our coffee vending machine at school. It's 60 cents for an 8 oz cup, and you can get all sorts of different kinds although most people tend to get a cappuchino :] But it is utterly satisfying, and piping hot ! I came home and founndddd MAIL ! I love getting post, its so...surprising :] It was a nice letter from Sonna Keatley, thank you so much, anddd Mikey's new CD. I listened to it over and over and over again, it is really quite amazing. If you didn't know already, Mikey Moore, one of my great friends back home, recently put out his first CD called "its all for you" and is in stores now. Go. Buy. It. It also has a really pretty cover design :] I got kind of bored just sitting around the empty house, so I hopped on my bike and went over to a little island that Petra and I found a few weeks ago. It's probably 2 km from my house, and is really cute. I brought my laptop [to listen to music] and my bible and a notebook. I sat right next to the water against a nice big tree and just blasted good songs while reading parts from Ruth, Jeremiah, and Luke. It was really nice, I felt like a storybook. I was there for about an hour before I got too cold from the wind, so I packed up and started home. On the way I saw some swans so I stopped to take some pictures, they were gorgeous. I hung out with Maria for a bit when I got home, she got her school pictures back today, they're so cute ! I'll try and send one to you, mom and dad. Around 4 I was still antsy to go do something so I thought I'd just take a little bike ride up to the store and back, but when I got to the store I felt like going a bit further and eventually made my way around the whole lake ! I got lost a few times, I took a couple of wrong turns, but I eventually found my way around :] Its probably about 11 km in all, and it was so much fun. I was singing my little heart out, just belting out different parts of different songs, sometimes just "la la la"-ing, but I was having a blast. And it acutally is a lot harder to sing and ride than if you were just riding, so I think I got a pretty good workout :] I came home, took a reallllly hot shower, and proceded to post this blog. I'm sure there is more to tell, but dinner awaits ! I'm not sure when I will post again, maybe this weekend, maybe next week. Our school has sort of a "fall break" and we have from this saturday until the monday of the following week off. So 10 days of no school :] I've made some plans, I'll make sure to take some pictures, have a nice weekend !

nelkytkolme - 43

soooo, its sunday night ! Let's travel back to friday :] Mm, well friday I woke up around 8 and decided that I wanted to ride my bike to school that day. It wasn't really raining, just kind of drizzling, so I didn't think it would be bad. Boy was I wrong. I was completely drenched head to toe when I finally got to school, I mean, my shirt was dry because I was wearing my rain coat, but my jeans were soakeedddd. But oh well, there were a lot of other wet kids as well, so I didn't feel too out of the loop. I didn't have any classes that morning, just finnish lessons at the university, but I wanted to tell Annina and Anu about the whole prom thing, hence the reason I went to school ! So we talked for a bit and then back out into the rain I went to ride my bike over to the University. We were in the studio today, a listening comprehension lab. We get to talk a lot on these days, so they're fun :] After lessons I hopped on my bike and tried to go to an ATM to get some money out to pay for my phone bill, but a strange message popped up in finnish, I think it meant something like "this ATM is temporarily out of money" or something....so no luck. I then proceded to make the trek back home. My house is about 12 km from my school, so it's kind of a long ride, plus the way home has more up hills, so it takes a little longer. Luckily this time I wasn't riding into the rain, so my face didn't get as cold. Although, as soon as I walked in the door I took a nice hot shower and then ate some lunch. The rest of the day was spent watching TV, cleaning my room, and other various small tasks. At 5 55 I took the bus downtown and walked over to Paviljonki for our last rehearsal before the big show on saturday. We just did run throughs of how everything was going to go and then did sort of a dress rehearsal, but all in all it was fun. It ended at about 9 15 so I went home after that and crashed because we had to be at Paviljonki again at 8 the next morning. Moving on to saturday. Well the morning started off okay, I was up and ready on time, ate some breakfast, and then left to catch the 7 30 bus. I stood at the bus stop for about ten minutes before finally re checking the bus schedule to make sure I wasn't wrong. Aha, and then I realized that bus only comes once an hour on saturdays, instead of 6 times in the hour on weekdays. So the bus I was waiting for had already come at 7 20, and the next one wasn't until 8 20. So I called Anna, waking her up :/, and asked if she'd give me a ride downtown...she did and said it was totally fine and everything, but I still felt so stupid. Anyways, so she drives me downtown, and I thought that I had expressed that I wanted to get dropped off at Paviljonki, but I guess not, because she drove me right to my school, which is about a mile from it....I didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't want to be there, so I just said thanks, waited for her to drive away, and then half ran/half walked to Paviljonki. I was only 5 minutes late when I got there, so that was good. But when I walked in, I walked in to find probably, oh, 15 people. Yeah, apparently I didn't really need to be there until 11 30 that morning, the early practices were for the play people and the dancers, not me...so I got to sit and watch do overs and do overs again and again. But I entertained myself with a deck of playing cards and played solitaire repeatedly :] It wasn't too bad actually, I got to talk to different people on their breaks. The entire event was supposed to start at 2 so around 1 30 we took our seats. The people running the show overbooked, so some of us actors. including me, had to sit on the stairs next to the seats, at first it was alright, but mannn did it hurt after awhile. Anyways, so when the whole thing started there were more than 1600 people in the audience. This event was for the celebration of Lyseo's [my school] 150th birthday, so there were lots of important people there, as well as most of my student body. It started off with some speeches from some of these important people, including the prime minister, Matti something. The president was supposed to be there, but she canceled and sent her speech to someone to be read. The speeches were boring, because they were in finnish, but then the Jyväskylän Symphony got to play, and some women sang, and then there was a tango ! That was fun to watch. And then there were more speeches, and then the play ! It was a scene from a very popular play in Finland, and in it there is a bear, and then these hunters who kill the bear, and they sing ! Annina was "snow" in the play, but her and her castmates were really pretty in all there white flowy outfits. And Joonas was the head hunter guy, so that was really cool to watch. After the play there was some more singing and more speeches, and then finally it was my turn ! The point of what I was a part of was that there were 150 [actually it was only 100, but we wanted 150] students who went down to the stage and then we did this time travel sort of thing where we acted out Lyseo over the years. The school started out as an all boys school and then the girls came and yeah, I don't really know how to explain it, but maybe when I get the video it'll make more sense. But it was super fun, and I was in the front, so you might be able to see me ! :] Anyways, so after the thing ended we all hung around and kind of cleaned up and such and then we all said our goodbyes and went home. It was so much fun, I am so glad I took part in it. The people who were a part of it recieve the video [once its made] for free, and its of the whole entire production ! And then today, well I didn't really do much in the morning, although I finished letters to the Wilson family and to Janelle Lea, so they'll be in the mail tomorrow ! If you want me to write you, write meee :] And thennnn, I went ice skating ! With my friend Kirsi from school, her family is hosting the exchange student from Italy, so we three went to the skating rink :) I wore Anna's skates, which felt like they fit just fine when I tried them on last night, but oh boy, they were probably 4 sizes too small. But I didn't do half bad, and Barbara [the girl from italy] and I never fell ! So that was a big accomplishment. After about 2 hours of skating they took me home and I showered, ate, and watched part of Camp Rock ! And now I'm going to get ready for tomorrow and what not, have a niceeee day !

:D

Thursday evening - My presentation went swell !


and thennnnn....



I got asked to the prommmm :D :D :D :D :D :D

nelkytkaks - 42

I know, I know, I haven't posted in a while...it's been crazy :] So let's start with sunday. I woke up around 9 and showered so that I was fresh and clean. Piia and Annina were coming over around 2 to play soccer ! Piia can drive so she drove herself and Annina over to the soccer pitch and I went down to greet them. They came over to the house, and I showed them around and introduced them to the family. We went back down to the soccer pitch for about an hour, just kicking the ball around and what not, it was quite fun. Then we came back to the house and had some fruit pie and ice cream, deliiiicious :] Then we looked through my pictures from home, and I showed them my powerpoint and what not, so they got to see Silverdale and all my friends. Piia left around 3 30 and then Annina left around 4, but it was a lot of fun. At 4 15 Anna, Maria and I went to the ice hockey hall to see Lauris game, we were a bit late, but we got to see the last half. They lost, 7-3 :/ But it was fun to watch. And then at 6 Anna, Maria and I went to the swimming hall for her swimming lessons. I swam the whole time this week, 45 minutes straight of 50 m laps. Woo, that was nice :] Maria and I went over to the wave pool/kid pool for 20 minutes once her lessons were done so that was fun. And then we had 20 minutes of sauna before getting dressed. I went to bed almost as soon as I got home, I was so tired. Okay, so monday. I went to school at 10 and tried finding my classes, I had english first, it was actually kind of fun :] And then our school had this um, celebration type thing ? All 600 of us walked downtown, passing our school mates who were being human statues, down to the compass which is the center of our shopping malls. We all circled around the compass, basically blocking any one from going through, and listened to some speeches and poems given by students and teachers. They were about our school and such I think, and then we had another, smaller, fashion show. And then we had fire breathers ! They were two seniors from our school, and one of them wasn't very good, but the other one was amazing ! Except he burnt his hair...Annina and I were on TV ! I really want to see if I can find it online and show you all, we didn't say anything, they just filmed us being fans. But it was cool :] When we got back to school I went to find my psychology class, but the class I walked into was the finnish psychology class, and I want the english IB course, so I walked all throughout the building looking for them, but no such luck. So after awhile I gave up and came home. I did some reading, finished my finnish homework, and then watched the movie Taxi with Juuso. That is one funny movie, we were dyinggg. Okay, so now to tuesday! I had english class at the beginning of the day again, we worked on synonyms, which basically just turned into me giving answers :] Tuesday was deemed the day we act like we were in the 1800's. Everyone was supposed to dress in old fashioned or dark clothing and in class we weren't allowed to talk, and we had to stand up to answer and wait for permission to sit down again. We even had to stand outside during our break, it was absolutely freezing ! The food was kind of gross, lingenberry porridge, it was really thick and goopy, I wasn't the only one who didn't like it...Chet and I both had about two hours to spare before finnish lessons so we walked to the library and looked at some books. I didn't get any, but I'm probably going back, because I need things to read. After about an hour in the library we decided to hit some used book stores, there are tons of them here ! I didn't find anything worth buying, but some of the books were interesting. When it was close to 2 we headed over to the University for our Finnish lessons. I guess I didn't miss much last week, so I didn't have anything to catch up on, so that was nice. We didn't necesarily learn anything new, we just re-visited things we had already gone over because we were ending unit one this week. After finnish lessons I came home and around 5 Petra called and asked if I wanted to go for a bike ride ! So off we went, just riding around. We stopped at a little park with tire swings near my house, and swung ! After about 15 minutes this man came over and started talking to us. He was talking about how a swing works and what not, but he kept talking, for 30 minutes ! He had something wrong, like a mental illness or something, so we didn't want to just walk away and be rude, so we just sat there, Petra did all the talking. Near the end of our conversation his phone rang, he said it was his mom. So Petra and I then told him that we had to leave. He asked me something but I told him [in finnish!] that I spoke english and all of the sudden he started reciting John 3:16. So that was quite the adventure, after that we just rode around the lake and such, quite nice :] On to wednesday! I was supposed to have psychology at 10 that morning, but when I got there, I again couldn't find the class so I went to find my counselor and ask her about it. She had class however, so I had to wait outside for a long time. Around lunchtime I went and sat with Saana and a few of her friends and we played cards :] I don't know what the game was called, in finnish or in english, but it was fun, and I won a round ! After that we had this assembly thing in the gym hall, it was packkkked. Wednesday was the official 150th birthday of Lyseo, so it was a big deal. The assembly was hosted by Annina and Joonas, so that was cool to watch. There were poem readers, and different people talking about the school and other things, it wasn't half bad for being all in Finnish actually. I had to leave early though to get to Finnish lessons. They were in this computer classroom, so we spent the whole class, surfing the net on finnish sites ! I worked with the Irish guy Mark, he's really cool, and his accent, amazing :] Uh, after that I rushed to bus so I could get home. That night we had Gaala at the school, basically a school dance ! With live bands :] Any excuse to get dressed up is fine with me, I love wearing dresses. It started at 6 30, and was actually really fun. It started off with toasts of apple cider to the school, and then we played this conga line/hugging game, to the song of BINGO. You know, "there was a farmer who had a dog and bingo was his name-o. B-I-N-G-O." But in finnish it translates into some black cat sitting on a windowsill named bingo....but anyways, so get in a conga line and start moving as you sing the song, then when you start spelling bingo, you shake hands with the person opposite you, going down the line until you reach the letter O and then you hug ! It was really interesting, but fun :D Then we just walked around, occasionally dancing to some songs, and what not. In the middle of it I went out to check my phone and text Anna when I would be home, only to find out it wasn't there! I thought maybe someone stole it, but my bus card and money were still there, so it didn't really make sense. I checked all around outside in case I dropped it, but I couldn't find it. Annina told the girls running the buffet table we were looknig for it, but they hadn't seen it either. We tried calling it but no one answered...After about 45 minutes Annina got a call from my phone ! So we answered and this girl said that she found it, so we found her and I got my phone back :] Gaala ended around 10 30, so I caught the 10 45 bus home and went straight to bed. And now, today. Well, it's not over yet, but I'll let you in on what's happened so far. I left for school at 7, and had psychology first thing. I finally found the right classroom ! It was nice to be back in there, I like that class. After psychology, Chet and I had english class, fun fun! They had a little word test today, but it was translating finnish to english, so Chet and I were excused from it. Afterwards we did more finnish to english translating, but this time I actually could make out some of the sentences, yay :] I think I'll actually learn quite a bit from this class. Lunch was horrid today, I don't know of one person that liked it. The only good thing were the potatoes, but it went along with this creamy oatmeal textured sauce, and a hunk of COLD white fish. Not too appetizing...the milk was good :] After english was over, I was done for the day, so I came home and showered, and worked on my speech for my Rotary presentation, tonight ! It starts at 4 30, wish me luck ! So anyways, that's been my thursday so far, sorry for the long wait of posts, its been crazy ! I'll try to be more on top of it from now on, have a splendid thursday :D

nelkytyks - 41

Okay, so, the past few days have been sort of crazy, so I'll try and sum them up as best I can. So friday morning I didn't go to school because Anna took Maria and I on a trip with the church that she works for. We also picked up a family friend of theirs, Maija [probably 21 or so], and her baby Enna [1], so that was fun. We drove to her church in Muurame, probably a twenty minute drive from here, and just kind of hung around while Anna helped out and got things organized. Around 10 three buses showed up and everyone piled in. There were probably close to 100 people there, mostly moms with their kids. The bus ride was about an hour and a half, full of screaming babies and crying toddlers, but it was fun :] We were on our way to ähteri, a finnish zoo ! We walked around and saw so many different animals, all native to Finland, it was really cool. We saw reindeer and elk, deer, and a wolverine ! I also got to see swans, and beavers, and all sorts of animals :] I took a lottt of pictures, I'll post a few at the end. After we saw the animals we went back to the picnic tables and ate some lunch and then around 3 30 we headed back to the buses and headed home. I slept pretty much the whole ride home :] I don't know how, the babies were now tired and cranky, so the screaming was worse, but somehow I managed to sleep though it. When we got back we waited for about a half an hour for Anna to helpclean up and then we drove Maija and Enna home. Anna was supposed to be worknig a kiosk at the hockey game that night, so we dropped Maria off at Sonja and Mia's house and then headed to the hockey hall. After visiting three different kiosks, Anna said that they didn't need her help afterall. I was planning on meeting up with Annina and Piia that night, so I didn't want to go home just to turn around and come back again, so I stayed around and watched part of the game with Juuso. It was really cool, they had blaring music, and cowbells ! I didn't get any pictures, but I'll make sure I do sometime before I leave. I walked downtown to meet annina around 7 or so and waited for her to get out of play practice at the school. When she came out I also ran into Joonas ! He's one of Piia's friends and I've only talked to him on facebook, so this time I acutally said hi :] So he walked and talked with Annina and I down to the bus station and then we all got on the same bus, I was going over to Annina's house for a bit, Joonas lives sort of near her I guess. So that was a lot of fun, he's really nice...;D Aha, so anyways, Annina and I walked to her house, it was really cute, and I met her 11 year old brother. He's apparently really good at english, but he was too shy to say anything to me...darn. After awhile Annina and I left her house and headed for Piia's, who was cooking us dinner that night :] Piia lives quite close, just over an overpass from Annina's house. When we got there my jaw dropped. She lives in this tiny little house, but it's so pretty ! She's an only child, so they don't need a big house, but her house was so pretty inside and out. When we got inside we noticed that she had put candles on the table and set out food in neat little dishes, it was so cute ! We ate delicious chicken soft tacos, they were so yummy :] After we were done eating and talking we took a walk outside and stargazed for a bit, we found the big and little dippers and a lot of airplanes. We went inside and watched different TV shows, ate some salted peanuts, and Piia made us the most delicious green tea I've ever had. We watched the finnish Idols, ahhahhaha, and some other random TV shows, and then around 11 30 Piia's dad drove me home. He didn't speak any english, so the car ride was quiet, but I was able to tell him enough so he knew where I lived. And that was friday ! And then yesterday. Um, I woke up around 9, had some breakfast and then Mia came over with Nana [naw-naw](her mom) and Anna and her went for a run. The boys all left for hockey practice or games, so I was babysitting. The girls and I went outside and played this jumping game, I don't know how to explain it, but someone picks a number, then the other people run and jump/leap that many times to try and get the farthest. Then the person who picked the number does the same thing only one time less than the others. Then they try and tag one of the others, if they do than they have to run back to the starting point before being tagged, if they can't reach it, then they're it again ! It was fun, kind of weird. Then I showered and watched Grease ! At 2 the girls and I went to see a movie, Nana drove us down there and we saw WALL-E, but it was dubbed over in Finnish. It wasn't bad though, theres not much talking until the end of it anyways, and it's a really cute movie, so it was fun. And then I met up with Annina again because Jason told us there was a big thing happening at the Mormon church that evening, and that althoguh we're not Mormon, we would have a chance to meet the new guy filling in for Casey. So we went shopping for a bit, and then walked over to the church. It was packeeed with kids. Apparently it was their "super saturday" or something, and finnish mormon kids from all over the country get together and just do different things through out the day in some city, and then have a dance at the end of the day, this time just happened to be in Jyväskylä. The new guy is named Terry, he seems nice, and he's funny, so that was cool. We just kind of stood in the big gym, talking and what not with our normal chill night group, everyone else was either dancing or standing as well. The funny thing about Finns is that no matter the speed of the song, they're always doing a waltz type dance. One of the boys asked me to dance, so that was fun, kind of awkward at first, but not too bad. We just talked about the normal typical things, why I was here, how long, what my hobbies were, etc. Then we had a live band perform, it was one of the past missionaries, Daniel, and some other guys. They weren't too bad acutally, I took a little video, so I might put that up. The dance ended at 8 30, after Jason sang "Can you feel the love tonight?" and "Beauty and the Beast", and all the kids got on their buses and went home. I got home around 9 30, watched Step Up, and then went to sleep. And now its sunday morning, and I think I'm gunna go shower :] Have a nice weekend !


A Fallow Deer
An elk :]
And this is for Jordan, a Buffalo !

This is baby Enna, she was so cute !

And loved to make sounds :]
A Reindeer !
A wolverine !
And this one's for mom, its an otter ! and it's waving to you :]
This is the band, Daniel is the lead singer, playing the acoustic.

neljakymmenta - 40

Sorry for the no-post last night, the past 48 hours were kind of chaotic. I woke up yesterday, went to the bathroom, and then went into the kitchen to get something, but before getting it, I passed out ! Maria was the only one home, and when I woke up she was just kind of standing there and laughing at me, she told Anna later that she though I was sleeping on the kitchen floor. I'm not sure what happened, I didn't go to school though, Anna took me to the little health center near our house around 4 in the afternoon. They ran routine tests, blood pressure, eye exams, etc. Some of them felt as though I was trying to pass a sobreity test ! What fun. Then they wanted to check my heart [making sure I didn't have epilepsy] so I had those little round sticky things put all over me and then hooked up to wires :] It was quite the adventure, espescially because they spoke finnish...but the cardiologist said I was fine. Although I have a golf ball sized knot on the back of my head that hurts, meaning that I hit either the chair or the table when I fell, but other than that I'm perfectly okay. Anyways, so that was yesterday and today was really short. I had art in the morning, which I have with Anu ! So that was great, plus its only like an 8 person class, so its nice and quiet. After art I would have had english but there was a meeting for the "150" people, school celebration thing, so I went to that. We basically just talked about what to wear, went over some basic "dramatic effects" and other little details. I then went home, and for the first time ever, had the house to myself. It wasn't actually that great, I just watched some TV, drew a little, wrote a little in my journal, things like that. Maria was the first one home, so we took a little trip to K-Market, and I bought a little gift for my family. I'll send it tomorrow ;D We had soccer practice at 6, I just rode my bike around while the girls played. At one point I was just standing next to the goal, the girls were having a water break when Matleena, one of the girls on the team, came up and pulled my shorts down ! So there I was standing in my underwear, in front of the entire team plus maybe 10 other onlookers. Thatttt was embarrassing, I quickly pulled my shorts back up, and proceeded to chase Matleena around. I'm sure it was really hillarious to see, it wasn't as embarrassing as I would've imagined, but still...being pantsed is no fun...Anyhow, I'm going to webcam my daddy, I might not post for the next couple of days, they're going to be quite busy :] I'll be sure to take pictures !

kolkytyheksan - 39

So this morning began kind of oddly. I got to school at 7 45 and headed to the art classroom, there were a lot of people hanging around, but the door to the art room was locked, so I just sat on the steps. At 8 or so, the teachers of the surrounding classrooms showed up and all of the kids sitting near me all went inside. So there I was, sitting by myself, and I think it was then that I realized something was wrong. The Italian exchange girl showed up about a minute later, and Chet about two minutes after that. It seems that the exchagne students missed a memo...We went and found our counselor, Marjatta, who found out that the art class was canceled...She showed us to an english class that we could take, but when we walked in there weren't any seats. Marjatta said that we could go find other chairs, but we were already too embarrassed to ever walk in again so she showed us to a different english class. This time there were a few seats, so now I'm taking an english class ! I think we're just there to help out and such, I think it'll be fun though :] Afterwards I had a four hour break so I went home for a bit. I watched a movie, listened to some music, and ate some lunch before heading back downtown. I had a spanish class that started at 1 25, so I headed there. The teacher never showed up, and I had to leave at 1 50 for my finnish lessons, so it was pretty much a pointless class for that day. Finnish lessons were pretty fun, we played a verb conjugation game, I was Zorro ! Afterwards I walked over to the Mormon church, without Annina this time, she had choir practice. Tonight, however, was Casey's last chill night in Jyväskylä :/ He's being transfered to Helsinki tomorrow, so we had a party for him tonight. HOME MADE ROOT BEER FLOATS ! Finns don't drink root beer, it isn't sold here, so it was really nice, and tasty ! :] It was a lot of fun, although kind of sad, but Jasons still here, so chill nights will still happen. After I got home I had some dinner, watched some TV, took a shower, and watched The Simpsons with Maria. And now I'm watching Harriet the Spy, ah, I missed this movie, I used to want to be her when I was little, her life was so cool. Anyways, so now I'm going to sleeeep, have a nice night !

I'd like now to inform you of a terrible happening today, a school shooting in a town about two hours from my town. The man was in his early twenties and ended up killing 11 people, and then himself. It's all over the news here, a lot of people are affected by it. Theres an exchange student living in this city, Kauhajoki, but he's fine, so that's good. You can read about it online, I'm not sure if it's hit international news yet. Anyways, so that's whats going on over here, keep me posted about back home.