"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 !