A very Finnish Halloween

Riina (in the back), Joanna and Heta at the Halloween party
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The week when I came back from Estonia was quite a boring one.  In fact it was very boring.  It was the "autumn break"  so no one had school.  I had plans for that week.  Either I was going to visit Marjanna in Joensuu again, or I was going to Porvoo with Isa or I was going to visti my friend Linda in Tampere.  However,  all of those plans were cancelled for various reasons.  SO I stayed home and did - nothing.  I felt like a lazy loser all week long but,  there was actually nothing to do.  My host sisters were always gone doing whatever,  all the Finnish lessons and kantele lessons were cancelled for the break,  I called my friends but they were either gone,  not answering,  or busy.  Some were working too.  Therefore I tried to stay busy by studying a little,  going outside,  reading and drawing and such but,  ultimately I was pretty much alone for the whole week.  I got a lesson from this though - always make too many plans that way at least one is bound to end up working.

My beautiful pouding chomeur
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So I was really glad when school started again.  I didn't have time to write it earlier,  but my schedule changed about a month ago.  I still had religion,  psychology,  english,  and french but now I also have art,  geography,  music,  and swedish,  as well as a traditional dancing class.  This class is done by the second graders (equivalent of grade 11) every year in every high school in Finland (this is the only reason I joined this class because I'm not particularly appreciative of dancing).  Basically,  we learn to dance the waltz and such and then in February we perform in front of parents and friends.  For such dances of course we must be in pairs.  My partner was chosen for me and he is very very tall so that the top of my head is at his shoulder.  This makes it very hard to dance the Polonaise which requires lots of turning.  Anyway,  I tried being friendly and nice and everything but he hasn't said a word to me the whole time.  However I shouldn't complain because there are more girls than guys in the class so some girls don't even have a partner.  So far we've managed to finish three dances I think and we're working on a few more.  Those three dances still need a lot of work.  I already have my dress though.  As soon as I got here people were talking about his dancce and I just couldn't help thinking "great, another grad dance - another few hundred bucks on a dress - no way".  But then Isa did her dance last year so she is lending me her dress which is very pretty and fits me quite well.

The most frightenning bathroom I've ever seen in my life
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My religion and psychology classes are almost the same.  In psychology we are discussing family development and in religion we are discussing family ethics.  However we did have a rather interesting discussion a few weeks ago in religion about the differences between Catholicism and Lutheranism.  I assumed that the reasons why the Lutheran Church was often more lenient and accepting toward such things as homosexuals and abortion was because of the origin of the religion.  However,  my religion teacher said that where the Catholics have someone to tell them what to think - the Pope (biggest dictatorship ever created),  the Lutheran's have no one so their system of ethics changes from parish to parish.  It makes it very difficult for the Church to establish a strong base for the Church.  Anyhow,  I thought that was interesting.

Our Halloween stuff
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I like my music class very much.  Every morning we listen to a peice of music - often classical and often Finnish so it increases my knowledge of Finland every day.  We also play some pieces.  On tuesday we played Dreamer by Ozzy Osborne.  I was at the piano and we had a base player,  a guitarist,  a drummer and a singer.  I have to say we were pretty good.  And we don't really practice any of it we kind of just have the basic chords and improvise from there.

Everybody getting disguised
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The fifteen minutes breaks between classes have also become more bearable - in fact almost necessary.  It is a great time to just sit with my firends and talk or,  if I have something to do like printing off something from the computer,  its a good time to do that.  We don't have a printer atv the Partio's. and since I'm applying to University now its a good thing to have.  I decided to apply at the University of Calgary in Anthropology and at St-Mary's in History.  I'll decide after whether I prefer to have a smaller class size and more personalized teaching or the honours program in bigger classes(mind you if its the honours program there probably won't be as many students).  My second choice at the UofC in case I'm not accepted in teh anthropology program is geography.

My wonderful Frankenstein's wife costume
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My geography class is basically nonexistent for me.  I don't understand much of what they're talking about and a lot of the time,  they have to read from their textbooks so I just take out my Finnish stuff and study.

Halloween is not often celebrated in Finland.  However,  becaue I'm here,  my friends and I decided to have a party anyway.  So on Friday after school,  we went to the S-Market to buy candy and chips and brown sugar.  After that we rented a horro movie and we headed to my friend Riina's house.  Riina had decorated her house "Halloweeny".  The lights were low and there were candels and things.  She also made the bathroom a crime scene and put red paint all over the place and wrte on the mirror "you will die next".  We made fajitas for dinner and I made them a french canadian pouding chomeur.  Its made out of borwn sugar and maple syrup sauce with a white  cake floating on it basically.  It was quite good and my friends wanted the recipe and wanted to know where they could buy maple syrup (most of them had never tasted it before). We also watched the horror movie but it wasnt that horrific.  My parents had sent me a Halloween package with candy and halloween pencils so I brought it to the party and my everone took some pencils and candies and stuff.  The best part of the night was when we dressed up in garbbage bag dresses and painted our faces and did our hair.  That was really fun and I think we sared a few neighbours by going out like that - remember people don't celebrate halloween.  The party lasted until about 23.00.

My rival, Frankenstein's mistress
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This weekend I'm going to learn to make Rizzi pirraka or Karjalapiraka which is a traditional finnish dish that everyone eat in Finland.  It is a thin sort of pita-like bread filled with a rice or potato paste.  Its quite good.  The week after that,  I have my first scout camp.  That's right,  I joined scouts again althoug,  this group is much younger.  I act more as a supervisor and I help the instructors out rather than actually being part of the group.  They're about 7 or 8 and we make knots and sing songs ad stuff.  It really fun to share what I'd been doing as a scout in Canada ans what they're doing now.  In fact,  my old scout groupe is trying to get in contct with this group for a world scouting project.  Only,  I'm not sure it would work because they need to speak english and the 7 and 8 year olds of Finland generally don't speak English.  So we would need a translator - that might be my job,  in a few months hopefully.  Finnish lessons are going great and I study every day at school.  I have my own lesson plans that I made up with the text book and materials that I could get.  However,  I can still only understand very simple conversations.  And talking is really difficult and,  for now,  only in the present and future tense (they're the same,  there is no seperate future tense in Finnish).

Everyone (I finally figured out how the timer worked on my camera)
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That same week,  my host sisters and I are planning to do something together since it will be my last weekend with them (So soon! :().  The next weekend I'm moving and I have a goodbye party.  We're also having Melii's birthday party on the same day.  I'm stiil quite excited to see a new way of living in Finland. Howeverm  just a few days after I arrive there,  I'm off to Joensuu because its exam week in the Ristiinaan Lukio and then I'm in Lapland.  So I'm quite busy until the 3rd of December.

This means of coure that there is still plenty more to come in this blog.  See you next time!