Grades and Olli

My week started with a trip to the observation tower located just up the hill from where I live now. It was -30C but we went anyways because I have no time on the weekends since I have so many games and it is too dark to take pictures when I get back from school #blackfriday #everyfriday. It was cold (the mouth piece on my water bottle that I had brought with me froze and my hands were really cold when I took off my mittens to take pictures) but I got some cool pictures out of it.

Then on Monday I was back to school. First I had English 2 (English with my class) before history and then my Finnish lessons. Then in my English class (not English 2, the other English class with the third class) we went over the meanings of idioms. In the afternoon I had two free periods so I worked on Finnish. In the evening I went back to Finnish lessons after a long break where we went over how to say dates and discussed when the course would end. It ends on my birthday, so Vera, the Russian girl said we should throw a party. We'll see. Hockey practice after that.

The next day I had my dance class. We did a large circle dance and some waltzing. In history we learned about Ancient Greek architecture and art. English was English and math was math (well, geometry to be more specific).

Wednesday was interesting. In English 2 we compared American and Finnish cultures since there was text about it. It was interesting to see what the book said and what I said and what my classmates thought. Before history class the mother tongue walked by me talking to my friends. She told me she walked by and then walked back after she heard me speaking Finnish. She said I spoke very well. +5 points for Emma. History was just Greek to me, math was math, English was English and hockey was hockey.

Torstaina we worked on the entrance to the gym for our dances and talked about the dances we were planning to do. In English we translated a chapter and a new student joined our class from Vimpeli. The rest of the day was pretty ordinary: school and hockey. In the evening though, I found out that my third host mom (who I will be moving to soon) has schedules me an appointment for the hairdresser the day of the dance.

On Friday I had English where we went over grammar and gym where we played floor ball. We got our grades back from the third grading period. Just a reminder: in the third grading period I had English, math, biology, chemistry and physics. (I had gym too but we don't get the grade for that yet since the class is still going on during this grading period.) This was definitely the hardest jakso I've had (and will have) this year. English and math were fine and I got an S and a 9 but the others were hard. I was taking the second chemistry and physics classes, meaning they were advanced classes and I have never taking physics and hadn't know anything about what we learning already and they were learning many things I hadn't learned before in chemistry class. I had biology and that was okay but there was still a lot there were learning that I hadn't learned before. Remember, this is Finland, you know, the place with one of the best education systems in the world. So anyways, I got a 7 in biology and in chemistry while in physics I got a 5. Of course it isn't that great, but remember that I am only human (and that I've never learned any of it before and that it was all in Finnish). I am just happy I passed that course. :)

In English class we had a disagreement about adverbs and what their test says and what we say in America. In dance we did the fireman's dance and in the evening my host dad worked on putting two more computer screens on his computer car racing simulator since the big races are coming up next week. Stayed tuned for more.

Lauantaina we had a hockey game near Jyväskylä. We didn't win (11-1 was the score) and my teammates invented me an imaginary boyfriend named Olli on the bus ride. Why? Hyvää kysymys.