Time for Month 3

This is the beginning of my third month in the wonderful country of Finland :)

I finished up September with a week of exams and the start of the 2nd period of classes. My first exam was French, which went pretty well, followed by history the next day. I could do the French grammar sections and the translations supposed to be from French to Finnish I did from French to English. On the history exam, I wrote two essays about the Second World War. My math exam was next, which went pretty well too, surprisingly. I answered the questions I could understand first and then sat at my desk puzzling out the others. I guess the teacher noticed the confusion on my face because she came back with a sheet of English translations :) English exam came next, and health exam last. English was fine, except for the vocabulary haha... and health was absolutely dreadful. Since the exams start at 9, I was waiting outside the door to my health room at 8:45. At about 8:55, two other girls from my class showed up and knocked on the door. Apparently the exam had started early, to give everyone more time to finish...I definitely failed it. Oh well...

I also like how we get the exams back after they have been marked in Finland. So far, my French and history exams have been returned... 9+ for French and 9 for history (the marks are given from 4-10 in Finland, with 10 being the highest).

The second period started the day after the exams finished. This period I'm taking two English classes, one that is course 1 (first year) and one that is course 5 (second year). I'm also taking a first-year history, which is from pre-historic to present times (and I'm SO excited for); German, which I'm absolutely terrified for; and a second-year math (which is awesome believe it or not; call me a nerd). Gym continues for this period and my Finnish and Spanish courses are continuing too.

It's been pretty much all about school lately so I haven't done all that much new and exciting. I tried a kind of voileipäkakku (literally sandwich cake) which was pretty good and went to see a couple of movies at the theater.

It's now dark in the mornings when I go to school... It's crazy how quickly the seasons change here. The leaves are all yellow, red and brown and most have already fallen off of the trees (and usually onto the driveway, where they all have to be raked up). It's usually pretty windy and cloudy too but we haven't had much rain yet. We're supposed to get the first snow of the year sometime next week though.. And apparently this winter is going to be the coldest in a 1000 years in Finland.

I went shopping for my Hallowe'en costume today. I'm pretty sure there's only one costume store in the whole city, which made me think of how the entire group of exchange students will look on the bus headed to the Hallowe'en party together...Hallowe'en's not that big here...ahh crazy foreigners.

Also, just recently was the first time that I was able to order something and not have the cashier/salesperson realize that I don't speak Finnish yet. I was asking for a box of popcorn, which was pretty simple, but I was pretty proud of myself nevertheless. It must be really exhausting for everyone to have to deal with foreigners.

I've had a couple of aha! moments where I've realized that I've understood the conversation, but they are pretty few and far between. They're slowly starting to balance out the majority of the times that I'm completely clueless though. It's giving me some hope that I'm still learning.

The Lapland email came yesterday from Rotary! We get to choose between going skiing, snowboarding or cross-country skiing and we're also visiting a reindeer farm and learning how to make ice sculptures. It's going to be about a 16 hour bus ride (picked up at 7 at night and arrive at 11 the next morning) but I can't wait!

I guess that's all. Happy Thanksgiving Canada! Eat lots of turkey and pie. Love from Finland :)