My First Week School

So yeah, after meeting my host family and bonding with them on the Saturday and Sunday, I had school the next day, and quite frankly, I was excited. Like really excited. Like I got up at 5:30 am got all my school gear ready, brushed my teeth, realised it was 5:40, did 20 minutes of exercise, excited.

We had a simple yet very healthy breakfast of cheese, salami, and cucumber on toast, and some yogurt with berries. Then I was of to school at 8:25 to meet the teacher in charge of the exchange students. We met her, did all the paper work and then met all the other exchange students that come to the same school.

So there are 4 exchange students that go to my school.

+Jackomo, an Italian exchange student. Very friendly.

+ Lonnie, an american exchange student.

+Martina, an Argentinian exchange student, who's English still needed a bit of working on.

+Catherine, a Taiwanese exchange student

There was another exchange student in Lahti, but he went to a different school where the curriculum is mostly made out of music and arts, what a lucky guy. His name is Siam and he is from Canada.

They are all very nice people, and they showed me around the school and talked about how there exchanges have gone so far. Most of them are very happy with how their exchanges have gone so far.

That was my first day. Very simple.

My second day was not so boring, I actually had to go to classes, with grade 6 students. I didn't go to class with the grade 10, 11 and 12s because they had exam block. So the teacher in charge of the Exchange students sent me to different classes with students ranging in age from 12-15.

So I felt like a giant.

The chairs where to small, my knees where touching the table in front of me. It was quite uncomfortable. But it was great fun for me, because I got to read out some English texts, and got asked a fair few questions, about me and Australia. Which was very cool.

Then I had history with grade 7 students. I got to chat with many of the students before the class started. During the class we looked at pictures that represented when Finland got taken over by Russia. Then we signed a petition for Finland's freedom, which was then given to the Russian Emperor, who was acted by yours truly (Fletcher Kendall), who responded to the petition with the legendary line "en ole teille vihainen", which translates to "I'm not mad at you".

The third day, I did a lot more talking and listening as I ended up with a classroom that is studying English in grade 9. So the teacher wanted me to go around and talk to everyone. Pretty ordinary class, except that they all are girls. So that was a bit of a shock. And not only where they girls but they had ear hoops, as well as the bull ring hanging from the nose, they where wearing clothing that showed belly buttons (frankly that is crazy because it is -5 degrees celsius), and one of them had died there hair pink.

I am not saying there is anything bad about.

See..... I come from an all boys Christian school where we wore uniforms.

I was quite frankly stunned, shocked,

for about two seconds and then i got over it, because while on this exchange I must adapt or die. Just like when camping, or working in a dangerous job, you must adapt or die.

After being shocked, I went and talked to all the groups of girls for about 20 minutes each, as there was 4 of them, and the classes go for about 75 minutes.

After that I was in the same classroom but with younger students speaking English, where once again I talked about myself and Australia. Then I had lunch with them did some more talking and went home.

The next day was a very good day, because I had 2 hours and 30 minutes of cooking. During this time I did a bit, only a bit though, because the instructions where all in FINNISH. So .... I mainly just tried grabbing ingredients that they said I should grab. A simple job, that I failed at immediately because there where so many different types of each ingredient. Like Maito, milk, they needed full cream, I didn't know what full creamed milk in Finnish so I grabbed the first thing that looked like milk. I came back thinking it was full cream. Slammed on the table gently, and said "Tama on Maito" (This is Milk) which they said "Fletcher, that's not milk". So I spent most of the lesson just trying to find ingredients. But I also helped in mixing and cleaning up ......... The food that we just cooked that was delicious. We had made a chicken pie, I think, and a fantastic Runeberg cake.

The final day of the week, I had English with more 13 year old students and music. In English I spent a lot of time standing in front of them talking about Australia and myself. In Music I spent a lot of time talking to the teacher and just listening to the students play.

Overall it was a great week.

I met a lot of people, which I remember there faces but there names are a different story.

Once you start talking to them, you realise that they are really friendly and nice people.

The lunches that they give out for free, are delicious.

Apparently saying "Moi" to everyone you see is weird, so I'm a bit weird.

I am always having a great joke debate about whether or not pineapple belongs on pizza (which it does).

They have a fuse ball machine, which is a lot of fun.

Walking up to people in a wide sumo position gangsta style bouncing up and down while saying How are you doing and having my hands do gang symbols in Finnish is also apparently weird, So I am doing that too.

Kiitos for reading

Stay Awesome

Fletcher Kendall

I helped make this!