114 Days Left

First off, before anything, I am writing this post for those who are going/ wanting to go on exchange, for my family and friends, and for anyone who wonders the true life of an exchange student. I'm not in anyway saying I want to go home or that I am unappreicative of being here, this is just the true feelings I have right now.

The other day I was waiting for the bus to take me to a friend's house and as I was waiting something hit me. I reliesed how comfortable I have became with living this life, living in Finland. I don't know how I will be able to adjust when I go home. Now the days I have left here are less then the days I've been here which means at that I;m no longer counting down the days since I've been here but watching the number of days I have left dwindle.

Your days on exchange arn't filled with endless adventures or constantly fun times. I haven't been the happiest here for the past few months, I've though about going home plenty of times. I've cried lots of tears but I've also smiled lots of smiles. I've had some really bad down times but also some times that made me so fucking happy that I'd forget that I'm a foriegner.

There is a part of me who wanted to go on exchange to get away from home, so I would no longer have to deal with the stress and hard times that that  life brought me. But the saying is true you can't runaway from home. I still feel the stress and constant worry that I did back home that only difference is is that I'm not there. Hearing the other day that my grandmother, who really means the most to me, has to have heart surgery scared the living daylights out of me. If something bad happens and I'm not there I don't think I could ever forgive myself for leaving. We all go on exchange knowing something bad could happen to someone we love but the fact that it could be reailty for me, is hard.

Anyway I only have 3 in a half months left so I will take advantage of the time I do have left. I'm not the best writer or blogger but I do try to do my best in writing.  Here are some pictures/videos of the past few weeks!

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Until Next Time,
Hailey

Suomen Koulu// Finnish School

I'm finally putting up a blog post about school here in Finland. I can say that chances are no matter where you go, school is school and you will most of the time be waiting for your last class to end so you can go home. The difference of school in the US and Finland is quite different,

In high school (lukio) the schedule is more closer to college schedule, you are treated as a responsible adult, and there are 5 Jakso's (marking period).

So my current schedule looks like this:

Maanantai

Tiistai

Keskiviiko

Torstai

Perjantai

8:20 - 9:30

X

X

X

Finnish

X

9:50 - 11:00

French

Math

Music

Math

French

Lunch 11:00 -11:40

11:45 - 12:55

Math

Music

English

French

English

1:20 - 2:35

English

Finnish

X

Music

Finnish

2:50 - 4:10

x

Gym

x

x

x

I'm taking 6 classes where before I've taken 4 or 5 classes a Jakso.

Classes are 75 minutes and you have each one 3 times a week. When a teacher will be gone, there is sometimes a substitute but I have had times where my classes are canceled which is so nice, haha. Each Jakso last 6 weeks, 5 of those weeks are teaching and the last week is exam week (koeviikko). They also call their teachers by their first names here, so instead of Mrs. Doe they would say Jane. It deeply confuses me, but I go with flow and adding to this I don't know many of the teacher's I've had names. They have a different grading scale, they don't have letter's bur rather numbers from 4 to 10 and 10 is really really hard to get and 7 is average and 4 and 5 are failing. Here in Finland after the 9th grade they must apply to lukio with their grades from the middle school. So if your grades are not good enough you can go to 10th grade which is optional and raise your numbers there.

Now about my school specifically. I go to the 2nd biggest school in my city out of the 3 there are. There's between 700-800 student's at my school which are mostly middle school students (7th to 9th) and lukio has between 250 and 300 students. My school is pretty nice and I think that's because a lot of the student's here appreciate their school more in then in the states. My school is also in the center of town in my county (?? I'm not sure about this but my city has three parts and this county stuff confuses me because in Hampton, we are an independent city so there is no counties or anything like that.)

Some things I like here compared to my school in the US

1. Free school lunch
2. Open campus policy; With everyone's schedule different they can't exactly enforce a close campus policy. So if you don't want lunch you can go across the street to the stores and get something to eat or if you don't have a class and want to go buy something you can.
1. No dress code; THIS IS LIFE! There is no dress code here and you know what no matter what someone wears everyone get's there school work done. In August when it was still warm I wore shorts and a tank top to school and didn't get in trouble because they're freaking great here.
3. 20 minute breaks between classes; 20 minutes break?! Yes! If there were hall sweeps here, you would honestly have no excuse to tell Brion (one of the dean's at my school in the US) why you didn't make it to class
4. The scheduling; the short days are bliss when I get out at 12:55 or go to school at 9:45
5. Coffee machine; There's a coffee machine in my school and for .60 cents you can get your self a mini coffee, expresso, or hot chocolate and it's great.

Something I like in the US compared to school here

1. The lunch; okay so food here is healthy and free but it often doesn't have much taste and I'm often left yearning for chicken wings, pizza or chicken patty for lunch. There are days when there is no meat for lunch and usually by the end of the day I need beef jerky or something.
2. School Buses; They don't have school buses here. If you live farther out you can take the public transportation but most kids in lukio ride their bikes, walk, or ride their mopeds to school. In winter when everything is icy, walking to school is just hell. I didn't fall much but it takes a lot of concentration  not too and also during this icy/snowy time if you don't have winter tire's on your bike you can ride your bike to school (I learned this the hard way).
3. The bigness of Bethel; Anyone who goes to Bethel knows how big the student body is and how small the school is. The smallness of Bethel I don't miss but what I do miss is how many student's there were. 
4. School Sports; In most European countries there are no sports connected with the school as school is for academics and then sport is with club. It's nice to go to school and have practice after and have your small little family at school.

I've been wanting to have written this for over 4 months now but I just never felt energetic enough to write this. Happy Valentine's Day! Hyvää Ystäväpäivä! (Direct translation: Happy Friendday)

-Hailey

Stockholm

For January 30th and 31st I was in Stockholm with my host mom! We walked around the city, rode the metro, and visited some great museum's and historical places.

THE CASTLE

One of the places in Stockholm I visited was the Castle, where the royal family (of Sweden) lived/lives. One part of the castle is open to visitor and the rest is closed off because they live in the other part. Here is a slideshow of pictures I took. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a history nerd and it was so amazing to have seen the castle and read all the facts that they had in the castle.

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OLD TOWN

This part of Stockholm has been here for many centuries back to the 1000's I believe. I loved how cute and vibrant everything was here in this part of town. It reminded me a lot of what Italy looks like in the movies. 

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GLOBEN

On our last day in Stockholm, my host mom took me to Globen! Globen is like a very mini London Eye, so you get in to this glass bubble type of thing and you ride up and you can see the top of Stockholm from it. It takes 20 minutes in total to get up and come down and it is a little over 400 feet up. 

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THE CHURCH

When we first arrived in Old Town the first place we went to was the Cathedral of Stockholm.

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Along with those places I went to the Nobel Prize Museum, which was such a fascinating place. I also took photo's in an old Swedish phone booth and in front of the Nobel Museum. I found out that 7/11's exist outside of the US (in many countries but Finland of course), it also brought back memories of home as Stockholm is on the waterfront just like Hampton, so the chilliness of the windy air made me think of home. 

 

Next Sunday I leave for Poland for Sport Holiday, thanks to my host parents I will be able to bear witness to Auschwitz

-Hailey

2 Years!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BLOG!!

Two years ago I got an email from CBYX say that I was going to be a semi-finalist which ment that I had a pretty good chance to do an exchange year in Germany my junior year. Though I did not get that scholarship, here I am two years later in Finland but actually I'm in Sweden right now but you get the jist. I still can't believe where I am even though I did not go to go to Germany 14-15 I'm grateful for have been a semi-finalist. It really gave that extra push and confirmed with me that I wanted to do exchange and it wasn't a long lost dream of mine. For my senior year Icouldn't have pictured it any better I can't believe I will be finishing the last of my high school classes in March and then in August I will hopefully be leaving for Paris for university and this will be an amazing year.  As I probably said last year I'm grateful for have started my blog even if I was so superstitious for doing it. I love re-reading my past blogpost not knowing what my future held. Thank you for everyone who has supported me and read my blog!

Until Next Time,
Hailey

P.S I have a video coming soon but I may trash it and just write what I talked about but there is something coming very soon :)

Hyvää Joulua//Last blog post of 2015

So this will be 2 post in 1!

Christmas 

Christmas here is celebrated on the 24th whereas back home we celebrate on the 25th, so this Christmas was spent a bit differntly. I woke up on the 24th, ate breakfast, and helped my host family set up a tree, took a shower, then went to Christmas Church. Pretty much the whole town go to the main church in Nurmijärvi for a little Christmas service, I didn't understand much but there was prayer, singing, and preaching. After this we returned home and shortly after left for my host grandparents house in Kalukkala for Christmas dinner and to open presents. Chrismas dinner consited of Turkey, many types of casseroles, meatballs, salad, a type of cream from Greece, and ham. After we ate dinner, we opened presents their tradition is that the youngest goes and gives a present to someone from under the tree one at a time. Both Nea and I handed out presents and recieved our own. I'm so thankful for my host family for being so kind for opening me into their home and giving me gifts for Christmas. It set in that this Christmas will the first of the next 4 or 5 Christmases away from home, so I did get a bit of homesick (okay a lot of homesick) but I enjoyed it and the new experince is worth it.



My last post of 2015.

This was one damn of a year. Soooo much has happened this year! I'm so grateful for Rotary, for my American friends, my Finnish friends, my exchange student friends here in Finland. I was accepted into two differnt exchange programs to two differnt amazing contries! I left my home and family, I came to this new country with two large suitcases and a carryon, and I made a life here I'm a bit afraid to leave. I've been accepted into my dream school, I've been homesick, and I've been the happiest I've ever been. This was my last year as a minor (plus nine days into 2016 but I won't count it really) My past 17 years of life have been great but I have many many years of more life to live, so I won't say  these have been the best years of my life because I've just started living.

Pictures of the day I left at the airport

 









Signing off for 2015,
Hailey

Ruka

On December 17th, at about 4:30pm I started on a 9 in a half hour trip back to Lapland to a place called Ruka!

It was about -20 degrees celsius while we were there (-4 degrees Fahrenheit)

My host sister and her friend had their training, as they are  downhill skier's, in Ruka so my my host family decided to take a trip there. We drove Tuesday evening and arrived a little after 4 am on Wednesday after having car trouble because of the cold. I think by 11:30 everyone was up and a little after I walked a bit around the little ski village in Ruka with my host mom.

That day I reliesed I was sick and of course it happened while I was there. That day I didn't go skiing but just hung out in the apartment. The next day, I woke up with a very sore throat and a runny nose, but I wasn't going to let that ruin my day. At about one I went skiing with my host dad over on the kiddie slopes because after my one day of skiing in Muonio I didn't feel pro-enough to concur the big hills.

The view from the bottom of the hill

I'm so thankful for my host mom who went to the apteeki (pharmacy store) and got me throat lounges and a powder hot water thing which numb my throat. Friday my throat was feeling better but nose was still running like it was running a marathon. At about 12 I went skiing again with my host dad on the hill for basically people who are to advanced for the kiddie hill but not ready for the harder slopes. On the way there since it was on the other side of the mountain my host dad and I rode the lift to the top of the big hill where all the slopes led off from and skied down to the basically big kid hill. I was honestly ready to shat my pants because I was sure I would ski off the hill to my death. I made it down in one piece and skied for about 3 hours and then we took the ski lift back to the top and skied down to the hotel. I had to have a teacher help me because the first slope down was steep and all I could see was death haha.

The lift that dropped off at the 'next step up form kiddie hill' hill

View from the 'next step up from the kiddie hill' hill

 My host dad dropped me off an hour later back on the other side so I could ski a bit more, and I fell so many times, it was funny until I went to the kiddie slopes and fell and sat like five minutes trying to get up. after about 2 in a half hours my host dad skied over to that side and we rode the lift up to go down one slope then skied back to the lift that would take us to the slope that would lead back to the hotel. My host dad had to help me like the teacher did earlier because I was still afraid of going down that part.

My ski card was good night skiing which started at 7:30pm so at about 8 my host sister, her friend, and I went skiing. We did the beginner  trail because only one life was up and the other slopes were way to difficult for me. Low and behold so was the beginner trail from the top of the hill to the bottom. My host sister and her friend helped me learn to ski, the first time went good and the second time when I was trying to turn I skied into my host sister and we both fell. Ahh! I had a fun time.

The next day we packed to leave and left for our 9 1/2 hour trip back to Numijärvi! I had a swell time and enjoyed being able to ski for a second time. Also there were lots of British families, it was so cute to hear the little British kids speak with their accents!

-Hailey