"Being an exchange-student" (my first speech in Speech class)

People with weight of 500 pounds living in McDonald’s, eating pizza for every meal, knowing just things about their very best country and nothing about other countries. These are some of the stereotypes that Finnish people have of United States Of America. The best way to learn that all of those are not true at all, is being an exchange student.

Getting rid of stereotypes was not the only reason which made me want to me an exchange-student. I wanted to learn speaking English like as original language, which is never possible because of my lovely Finnish accent. You can see lots of things about American culture from TV and movies. But the only way to learn what is American culture like, is to live one year with Americans. There's no way to get known American people and their culture by coming to have a three-week holiday with swimming pools and restaurants which are not called McDonald's. For more who would not want to gain more self-confident, build-up a strong self-esteem, become independent and grow up as a person. Those were my goals for this year. I was ready for changing my personality. Somebody could think that the biggest reason was being separated of my parents. I can say that it's nice to live kind of on my own without complaining and different opinions of some stuff, but I have realized during this five months that how much I love my family. Being without friends hasn't been so hard because I have got some new friends from here.

Nothing goes ever as you planned. That's a fact. I didn't know that this year would be this great as it has been. The start, first weeks that I spent here, was the hardest part just because of English. I was dead tired every evening and fell asleep in one second. For example, think about going to Spain and translating everything, whole the time, in your head. It took me about two months to start thinking in English and it was really weird at first I can tell. Joining our school's football and basketball teams have kept me active and busy. Even though I have hanging around on sidelines and benches more than on the field. But that has been alright. There's no such a thing called Finnish basketball-football superstar of all time. have I cried every night myself to sleep and called to my parents every day in skype? No. I have been calling once a month to them and cried zero times. Reasons or that are my lovely and the best host family ever, being active and of course, because of I'm a tough guy. I have been doing so many things that it would take many days to tell you everything, but I have to mention Muse and Green Day concerts for example.

During my experience I have realize how different cultures USA and Finland have. Everything in stores and food places is bigger and cheaper for sure. People. You are more open, friendly and talkative to strangers than Finnish people. I think those are the biggest differences in our cultures.

I have changed, a lot, I think. Right now, I'm living like an American. I have become more self-confident and I have that braveness to talk to anyone about anything. That's the way you do it. At the same time I have got known of many people, I have learn what kind of people I am myself. This change took time, but I'm really happy everything is like this right now. Time flies too fast. I don't want to go home after 5 months, but I guess I have to if I don't want to deal with American cops.

So, now I know that in USA, there are people in good shape, they visit McDonald's occasionally, don't eat junk food whole the time and everybody knows that Finland was selected as a best country of the world. Anyways, I love USA, Iowa and you and being an exchange-student has been totally the greatest choice in my life so far.

grade: B+ (because it was too long)

The New Semester

I bet there's no effect, if I say "I'm sorry this took so long", 'cause I have been doing that since I got here. To understand this thing u just have to become exchange-students.

After the blog before this, there hasn't been anything to tell, just normal life you know; basketball and school control my life right now. But there's always something. Something = the exchange-student Mid Year Orientation/overnight "party" in a house of our area rep, and a new Semester at school.

I'm gonna start with more exciting one. Suprising but true it's not the school one. In Mid Orientation we talk about things like "How to deal with possible problems/sadness?", "How are we feeling?", "What should we do during the time that we have left?" My answer is "I don't have any negative things in my life right now because I'm happy and gonna continue that way in future also!"

After the orientation part came the fun part. We went to our area rep's house. I hanged out with all the other exchange students from China, Japan, Estonia, Korean and of course from Germany, like 60% of all exchange-students are from Germany for sure. Maybe that's because they wanna go to a country that has higher drinking age. Who knows... (: I had a really great night, talking about our years so far and other stuff. I bet I made some new friends there. But there is always that saying "A*shole knows everybody, but nobody knows a*shole." But u can't even use "a*shole" and "exchange-student" in a same sentence. When we had hanged out few hours, then it was time to have SUPPER, eating (what else would u do in USA??) Lasagne... Suddenly the room was full of Garfield-cats from different countries. Hanging out continued after everybody changed back to human again (from Garfields). It was a really really evening. (--: One of the funniest part was speaking Estonia and Finnish with Erle (a girl from Estonia) and everybodu though it was the same language. :---D I slept in living-room with 7 girls.. that sounds like a fantastic dream, but I can tell that I was sleeping next to a door, and it was so freezing that my spit would have freezed in one second. But it went good 'cause I slept and didn't complain about the cold. :--) (I didn't even think about to ask some girl to... read me a story of course!) In a following morning we had an American breakfast; serials, junky bread, fruits and brownies. Then next address was home sweet home. :)) Here's the photo of us all in orientation.


Semester. It changed. It meant for me that only 2 of my courses changed. Sociology to Government and Grafting to Speech. I really like these changes. I love speech so far. And my next blog will be my first speech, topic: "Being an exchange-student" I know u can't wait.

This is my new schedule:
1. Study Hall 2. Government 3. Physics 4. Choir 5. Pre Calc (math) 6. US History 7. Speech 8. English 11

As the semester changed we got another exchange-student to our school! (I'm not the only foreinger in the building anymore) She's name is Annelie and she's really nice. I asked her to go to Winter Formal with me. Winter Formal is one of our lovely school dances (like Finnish disco kinda). I had a great time there though.

I have started to do weightlifting 4 times per week. The only bad thing about that is that I have to get my ass up 5-6 AM almost every morning. But I think I will survive, and if I don't; please bring blue flowers to my grave.

'til next time

Sami

ps. I got the going back home date... 16.06.2011.. much earlier than I thought! :(

Michigan and beginning of 2011 in this same packet

There are days when u forget that u have ur own blog to write. I had those days before making this! (What a great excuse..) Anyways now it's again time to enjoy ladies and centleman!

I'll start with Michigan. So, we left there on Christmas day. Our plan was to leave early, but because my brother likes to have long showers, there was no way. Our drive to Michigan took about 7 hours. I kinda enhoy the long drives. And we have a new VAN! It has all kind of magic buttons, and I wouldn't be suprised if it would have some kinda explosion button too. As we arrived to my host mom's sister's house, I started smiling. We gave each other some extra Christmas presents and then we just chilled.




On our first day after we arrived we went to a big city in Michigan, can't remember that name though.. And there was that pig which is in top of this chapter. In that city we went to Princess Diana-museum kinda thing. There were her real dresses, crowns and jewellery things, all kinda original letters and video of her funeral ALMOST made me and others cry. It was really sweet experience. I don't have photos of that thing, 'cause it was forbidden. And I didn't want to stand alone in cold weather after taking some pics. After that we went shopping to the Mal. I didn't planned to buy anything but I came back from there 200 bugs more poor. The moment of joy was definitely standing like 1 hour in the line of the clothing store. :--))

Second day was downhill skiing/snowboarding with my lovely brother! Here are some pics. They tell more than thousands words u know that guys! I can say it was real fun (watching my bro falling 8908980980 times) and I ate my first burger in one bar in USA ! It was strawberry-burger and delicious! ((;


Third day was reeeeeeeeeeeeally speacial! I met Mikko, my friend from my home town who is also an exchange student in Michigan. We talk about everything and mostly whole the time in English! It was easier in our opinion in that situation. We went skating with few other exchange students in Mikko's school. It was real fun and I didn't fall at all and was ashamed of Mikko's 594076094576047 falls.
After skating we went to..... S-A-U-N-A !!! ((: :: :))) )) ) ) ): :)) PERKELE. It was awesome! Even though there's nothing better than Finnish sauna. It was not so warm and stuff but it made my took a big part of my lack of sauna away. (: It was my friend's parent's friend sauna. And he was a huge Suomi-fan ! It was so awesome. :) Here's some pictures. The sauna-one is from Hunks-calender 2011.
It was an amazing day and so sweet as u can imagine!




Then it was time to come back home and wake up again 8 AM next morning to our basketball practice. It made me realize that there's reality also in this life.



The New Year's Eve. No rockets. Just hanging out in my bro's friend house. :-) It was a different experience but I liked it! Countdown (10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, HAPPY NEW YEAR) was great ! (: Just like from movies and TV shows. Too bad I didn't have any cute girl next to me in that moment though... :-DD U know I mean that wishing her "Happy New Year 2011".

The New Year started with basketball and school, and that it has been 'til this day and one time skiing with my friends. It's kinda stressfull at times to have no free time in weekdays and I'm really looking forward to Hawaii-trip which starts in a month! ((((:

'til next time

Sami