Yesterday was the day I had been waiting for: the GRADUATION DAY. I mostly waited that 'cause I wanted to wear that lovely hat so badly, just kidding. Anyways, I bet you guys there in snowy Finland don't know more about Graduation than American TV shows have shown to you. I've watched American shows and the only thing I remember about them is that frkn hat. So, let me tell ya everything (a little bit more than the hat) that I remember from yesterday.
Our Graduation started at 2PM. That was good since I got my beaty dreams which I need for living. In the beginning of the Graduation ceremony we, seniors, walked to our jim two people at the time. I got to walk with a boy, so we didn't hold hands (should I have?). Then we sat down, which is wise thing to do when you have chairs behind you. We listened one speech from our Principal, another from one teacher, and then few from seniors. That wasn't that bad. I sang with our Choir after the speeches. We started with the national anthem of the United States. I have to admit; I didn't have any clue that we were suppose to sing that, and I don't know the words either.. Oi maamme Suomi synn.. No.. wrong country. I knew the words for our second song which was called "Lean On Me".
Once the American Idol Contest was over, teachers started the longest part of the whoel ceremony; scholarships. They gave like 54878789990 scholarships. There was always a different person to represent, who got the scholarships and where. I was pissed they didn't say any reasons for choices. Maybe they gave those for them whose faces they liked best. Well, I don't think that was the reason. Otherwise my bookshelf would be full of scholarships.
After those scholarships it was time for giving High School Diplomas for seniors. Everybody got theirs. I didn't. The reason for that was that I'm an exchange-student. All the others have gone to school for 4 long years and I have just chilled there one year. I got a different kinda paper which said this: "The handsome Finnish boy (changed the name because this is a public blog haha) has completed the basic requirements as an exchange-student at Springville High School."
Then, the ceremony was over and we made a line in our cafeteria. The line was for parents and teacher, that they could say "Good job!" for each one of us. I hugged about 79874987 times and said "Thank you." at least same amount of times. My smiling muscles were dead after the line had passed us.
Photos tell you more than my stupid stories. So here you are guys. (:
The rest of the day was fun too. We went to some Graduation parties, ate some free food there and met people too. (Ofc food was the main reason to go...) I, myself, spent the evening 'til 2AM in my friend's yard. He had a bonfire and there were tons of people, and lots of fun! :--)
Today, I took some suntan, helped my Mom in gardening (not gay stuff at all...) and chilled. It feels so horrible, when people ask "When do you leave back home?" Then, when I say the answer, I realize how little time I have left... It's gonna be awful to leave my friends and family here. After all, it's gonna be easier than it could be, because... my host family is going to visit me and the other exchange-student brother to Europe! They will come to Finland in the middle of July. :)) So, I bet the good byes from Finland will be even harder. Right now, I'm gonna enjoy these last weeks for SURE! :---)
'til next time
Sami
For the first time, I have a really good reason why I haven't written for a long time; I shut down our Internet. Please, don't get me wrong... I'm not a computer freak who plays games 24/7 and sleeps two hours per day while eating popcorn. Alright... I love popcorn, but the reason for our Internet problem was me. I watched some hockey games via Internet. So, I'm a hockey freak instead.
Anyways, now it works again, and you can read my lovely thought after that little break. Isn't that great? Even greater thing is that I've been done with school since 20th of May. After that I have been pretty much sleeping, eating and relaxing. Even though, these last months at school were pretty much sleeping and eating too. After all I like this situation better (a softer couch).
Between sleeping and eating I've been playing Baseball in our school's team. We have practices every day from Monday to Friday 5-7PM. As you guys might remember, I played Finnish Baseball for 10 years. So, I walked to our first practice with really confident thoughts. After that first practice my thoughts were: "Thank God I didn't tell anything about my FInnish Baseball career to coaches... That career didn't help me at all."
Of course catching the ball is similar stuff. Running to bases has different rules though. Then, there is the most different thing: batting. To be honest, in the batting, there are only two common things, when comparing to Finnish version: both have a ball and a bat. Everything else, including pitching and batting technique, are new things for me to learn. I admit, it's kinda funny to start learning to bat in a totally different way than I have used to do 10 years. Until this day the ball has hit my body parts more than my bat. I might have more bruises than home runs in the end of this season. I was cathing in one of our games already... for one inning. I might play in one or two games still, we'll see. I'm gonna quit Baseball soon anyways though, because I have only few weeks left and I wanna see my friends and enjoy the rest of my time here. :--) Enjoy these photos of a future baseball star and his team.
St. Louis. I found myself from there last Wednesday. I was there for two days with our Senior Class. You don't have to be Einstein to realize that it was our Senior Class trip. We left 6AM, which was really wonderful. After we got there, we went to a City Museum. It was kinda like children's playground, but hey; I'm only 18! It was like a work-out to climb in small holes, and some of them were really slippery (doesn't sound perv or anything...). Anyways, here are some pictures from there. In the second one, you can see our Senior Class of 2011. Believe or not we had fun.
Once we have acted enough like babies, we drove to our hotel. The hotel was awesome; free popcorn and pops as much as you can get into your belly. As soon as our bellies were full, we went swimming to our hotel's pool. We had to go back to our rooms after and hour or so, because there wer tornado warning in St. Louis! I was ready for flying cars in the sky and lots of broken glass. After a while I got dissapointed, when the only stuff that I saw were huge wind and rainy weather. After all it was maybe better that it wasn't any worse. Otherwise I woulnd't been writing this blog. I wanna keep you readers happy.
Hard Rock Cafe was our next address. Waiters there weren't as excited as in Hawaii, but burgers were as delicious for sure. Here's a bad quality from the restaurant.
Next morning came (what a suprise!) and we ate breakfast and headed to the Mall of St. Louis. I didn't buy anything. My suitcase is in a diet right now and can't gain any more weight.
Today was a really hot, sunnt and nice day. I also graduated yesterday (not a big deal). There's some limit in people's interests to read this blog. So, I will make a new blog from Graduation. I always think your best.
'til next time (which will be after 20 mins..)
Sami
Suomen Leijonat, perkele! Vuodesta 95 asti ollaan ooteltu joko se kulta MM-kiekosta eksyis suomalaasten palkintokaapin kapasiteettii.. ja sieltähän se tuli! Ruottalaiset homopetterit löytiin murskalukemin 4-1. Tästä ei jää mitään selityksen varaa Jörgenille ja kumppaneille, joten ei muuta ku saippuoilla hopeemitaleita kiillottelee. Tämän kunniaksi tuli sen verran isänmaallinen fiilinki, että loppuvuoden blogit tulloo ulos uunista suomeksi! Tää suottaa jakaa mielipiteitä, mutta päätös on yhtä varma ku Jellonien tittelikikkeli maailman parhaana kiekkomaana, ja kultakullimitallit kaulassa. Kommentoikaa ihmeessä oma mielipiteenne kielimuutoksesta (ja MM-voitosta jos välttämättä haluutte). Totta kai mä kaipaan harjotusta suomen kirjottamisessakin. Ei sitä muuten kehtaa lukioo Suomes jatkaa.
Aloitetaan ny tuoreimmasta, kun sen hajukin on vahvin. Elikkäs MM-kiekkofinaali. Mä ite näin finaalista huimat 0,00 sekuntia. Ensinnäkin jenkki-TV ei näyttänyt vilaustakaan kyseisestä pelistä, vaikka meillä on kaikki Direct TV kaapeli sotkut yms. Meidän netti jäätyminen yhtä pahasti kuin Svenssonien maalivahti, oli toinen syy. Ja syy siihen istuu tässä tietokoneen ääressä. Note for yourself: ”Älä kato kiekkopelejä netistä, jätä Facebookkia auki yötä päivää ja lataile (laillisesti totta kai) elokuvia..” Valitettavasti huomasin kyseisen muistilapun meidän jääkaapin ovessa vasta tapahtuman jälkeen. Kyllä täytyy myöntää et kun kerranki ku voitto tulloo, niin Sami-poeka istuu ja seuraa peliä tekstiviestien voimin (kiitos Sonja!). Mutta elämä jatkuu sano mummo lumes, vai miten se meni. Voitto tuli ja se on tärkeintä. Täytyy vielä se todeta että jenkit ei seuraa/seurannut kiekkokisoja pätkääkää, siks ne varmaa tippuki niin aikasin leikistä. NHL eli kansainvälistä ja maailman suurinta kiekkoliigaakaa ei seurata lähellekään yhtä suurella intohimolla kuin minua, tarkoitan jenkkifudista, baseballia ja basketballia.
Olin tässä juuri vähä yli viikon yksin kotona host-isäni kaa. Veli opiskelee (hikke) ja käy viä töissä (työnarkomaani) haha. Host-äitini lähti frendinsä kanssa hevosleirille. Joten olin host-isän kaa vähä yli viikon. Se meni tosi hyvin. Oli kyllä aika jännä leikkiä perheen äitiä noin viikon ajan; tyhjentää kissankakkalaatikko, ruokkia koirat, ulkokissat, sisäkissat ja host-isä. Täytyy vielä mainita, että itsekin ruokaa söin. Älkää kuitenkaa luulko, että joka päivä kokkasin. Kerran tein kinkkukiusausta… sen jälkeen kiusaukseni tuli kaverit nimeltä Subway ja valmisruuat.
Tämän viikon voin aloittaa hymyillen yhtä leveästi kuin Johanna Tukiaisen takamus. Syy tähän on että juoksut on juostu. Track eli yleisurheilu on ohitse! Oon niin onnellinen ettei tarvitse enää puhkua eikä puhaltaa, tai juosta ympyrää pää kolmantena jalkana. Kaikki sateisen täyteiset Track Meetit, 5 tunnin odotukset että pääsen heittää pari kierrosta ympyrää ympäri. Neuvona tuleville vaihtareille: miettikää kahteen kertaan valitsetteko juosta Track-urheilua vai taloonne alasti ympäri. Itse valitsisin nykyään jälkimmäisen..
Mutta nyt ei juosta muuta kun pesänvälejä! Se on nimittäin huomisesta lähtien Baseball season! Jos joku ei vielä tiennyt (ei varmaan kukaan tienny) niin oon pelannu (osaamisesta en tiedä, mutta penkit oon aina lämmittäny nuoruuden tarmolla) 10 vuotta suomalaista pesäpalloa. Baseball ja pesis on ku riitelevät kaksoset. Niissä on paljon samaa, mutta myös erilaisuuksia. En niitä ala ny tässä selvittelee. Wikipedia on kaverinne siinä asiassa, ja minä muissa. Joten, saa nähä miten äijän käy huomenna ekoissa harjoituksissa. Tuleeko pallosta päähän vai päästä palloon. Oon aikas varma, että tulee oleen mun lempiurheilu.
1 kuukausi. Yksi hikinen kuukausi on jäljellä. Kauhistuttaa ajatella miten vähän aikaa… En halua edes ajatella, mitä tuntuu jättää kaverit ja erityisesti perhe tänne. Joten en puhu siitä olleskaan. Täytyy kuitenkin myöntää, että samaan aikaan tajuaa, että kohta näkee rakkaat immeiset siellä Suomessa. Että kyllä tässä igävvä tietyllä tapaa noushee ku päevät vähenee. Mutta nautin täysin rinnoin (en mä silikoneja..) viimesestä kuukaudesta ja se tulee oleen ihan liian nopee. Tiän sen jo nyt.
Tänään. Mä pistin tuulemaan. Testauspakkasin mun laukun ja kaikki, mikä jäi yli painorajan (3 täyttä laatikkoa vaatteita…) pistin bokseihin ja lähettelen ensi viikolla, että ne kerkiää tulee suhteellisen samoihin aikoihin itteni kanssa, eikä tarvitse ressailla viimesinä päivinä miten päin mä ne hameet pakkailen.
Seuraavassa blogimerkinnässä aionpi kertoa asioista, mitä tiedän että tulen kaipaamaan. Tän lisäksi voin paljastaa (en itseäni) miten baseball lähti käyntii, vai leikkasko kii heti kättelyssä.
sisuisin loppuhuiskutuksin
Mikael Granlund
ps. enää 1 viikko koulua! ☺
I keep it short because I had a really short Easter holiday here (off from school an hour earlier). And you guys in Finland had like 5 days long holiday.. Here's a photo of a dissapointed Finnish man with his brother. Ofc I had a great Easter with a family (and chocolote..) ! :--)
Finally it happened. This Saturday. Prom.
Prom doesn't mean a sound of a car or anything. It means the biggest dance during a school year. There's usually photographing of couples, Prom dance and Post Prom afterwards. Only seniors and juniors (two oldest class degrees) are able to come to this dance with their partners. The Prom dance is kinda awesome disco party, where is few slow dances, and the Post Prom is hanging out and having fun together after the dance.
I went to our Prom with Erle, an exchange-student from a different school. I knew her from our exchange-student organization's meetings. I think you can figure out that she is in the pictures which I put to this blog. (::
My Prom experience started with a thingy called Grand March. We, all the couples, walked to our jim, one at the time, and people took looots of pics. I'm sure they got good ones.. at least of me. :--) Because I had a cool suit, which I had to rent btw (around 100 bucks).
Me and Erle (theme was New York)
Me and my bro Kyle
With my mom
Almost all the boys
Me and two of my very best friends: Nathaniel and Brandon.
When the March was over, it was time to do my favorite thing: eating! We went to one of my friend's house to have supper. There was like 20-30 people plus me and Erle. We all had fun and food was delicious. It was time for Pool playing with full bellies.
Our next step was going to the DANCE. As I said, it was disco. Lots of good music, people and great dance moves by Sami! Who wouldn't like dancing? ;)
The dance was over 12PM. Busses took as to the Post Prom 1230PM. PP was in a YMCA house-center-what-ever-u-wanna-call-it-building. There was swimming pools, hot tubs, bouncy houses, a basketball court and lots of good food (again.. come to US and u won't get hungry for sure haha) At first I ate with others. There was Buffalo Wild Wings stuff! Those most awesome chicken wings ever made + all kinda junk, and I mean really good junk.. chocolate, strawberries, candy, tacos, you name it!
Next I found myself from that swimming pool, which water wasn't warm enough.. After swimming a while I went to the hot tub with other hot people. But I'm pretty sure water cooled down a little bit when I stepped there.. ;--/
All night long I had fun with all the amazing people, and especially with my best friends. It's really nice to realize right now who are the people that are my real friends and who I'm gonna miss the most.. Less than 2 months.. oh boy. =( Playing and jumping in the bouncy houses made me feel I was that tiny little child again. Sometimes I really miss that time, when my only problem was how much your Action Man was able to do without breaking a part.
All of us got to choose a bag full of FREE stuff. I chose one with a Iowa Hawkeye- blanket, candy and lots of gift cards. I was lucky one and got to choose a second bag too. I ended up with 10 free haircut cupongs. Ofc I need to cut my hair 5 times a month. If you wanna a haircut, take a next plane and get ur ass here! (: Then we can start to discuss of possible price.
We had fun 'til 530AM. The busses were full of zombies, but happy ones. I was home 6AM and went to sleep with a big smile on my face. Definitely one of the most unforgetable and best moments that I have experienced here. (Tasting a bagel is def number one..) Just kidding! It's taste of air.
For conclusion I can say that in the whole Prom thing, there was about 60 people, and I had one of the funniest nights in my life! (: Funniest one is when I tasted air for a first time.
'til next thingy
Sami Prom_illihuuru
What a great weekend! It didn't started too well though.. We had an Early Out at our school on Friday, which means that we get home 2 hours earlier than usual. It would be fun, but.. we had to leave to a Track Meet afterwards. We got there and oh... my... gosh; the weather was horrible: raining, windy and freezing (kinda like Finnish summer.. jk!) I had to wait 5 frkn long hours there before my 800 meters run, trying to keep myself warm. Even looking those boys and girls running with their tiny shorts and spandex, made me freeze. Finally came my moment to strip off all my clothes.. well.. I left our Track uniform that nobody would get a heart-attack.
Everything changed when I started running. I forgot that is cold and I looked like a fool with our too small uniform. As I said I ran 800 meters. Our coach had a same opinion that I would be better in 800 than in 1 mile. So thank God, I'm practising and competing only a half of the distance I used to. :--)) Back to that running race.. I started to run hard but didn't try to keep up with fastest guys, who should btw go to the Olympics and go away from Track meets.. Then second lap I started to improve my position, and with a last 100 meter sprint, I ended up being 9th! There was almost like 20 guys in our heat, so I'm pretty proud of myself! And or more.. I improved my time from last week by 13 seconds! Alright, that's enough.. maybe I should go to those Olympics too or at least go to some hidden place and be quiet haha. This all made my day on Friday. :)
Saturday was my host dad's birthday. He asked me to go to do gun target shooting with him, and I though "Why not?" At first I thought it would be loud guns, which break ur ears and break ur bones by doing a kick while shooting. But It was real fun! I'm really fun and I had a blast with him for sure. I got some bull's eyes too and got our whole target thing fall.. just saying! After that I went to the town with my Mom and picked up a suit for our Prom. Idk if I have said but I'm going to the Prom with an exchange student from Estonia called Erle. :) Our own school is so tiny as I've said and Erle is a really cool girl (to make sure u didn't think Erle is a boy..) ! I hanged out with her in the Mal after I chose the suit and we had so much fun. (: In the evening we celebrated my host dad's birthday by eating stake, cake n givinh him presents. I bought chocolate. Here's some pics from our shooting trip. No worries, there's target, not human beings outside the pictures.
Today, Sunday, was just chilling and trying to make my Mom's (in Finland) special "curry chiken and rice" meal. I got the curry taste down, but other than that it wasn't anything compared to my Mom's haha. Now I'm ready for next week.. buuuusy week. Two Track Meets n a choir festival.
'til next time
Sami
Run, faster, stronger and higher. That has been pretty much my life after Miami; track practices and one Meet (=yleisurheilukisat). So, I chose long distance. I'm just slower than other guys in sprinting for sure. Others have run over the finish while I start to set my starting blocks.
This week, we had SPRING BREAK, from Wednesday to Friday. It was again time to just be, doing nothing. Things I did are not even worth of telling. Boring Xbox, movies and guitar stuff you know. Fell asleep already there..? Hopefully not.
Track practices have been nice, just as nice as running circles can be.. We (me and one other guy) distance guys run 1600 meters, rest, 3200 meters, rest, 1600 meters. Then we have usually time to do some weight lifting. This is usuallu schedule for every week from Monday to Wednesday. On Thursdays we do all the events which we will have in a Meet, which is usually on Friday. In practices I started to feel pretty good about my stamina and running. Running is so relaxing, I think. Even though relaxing on couch is not bad either, with some beer.. But I have to stop dreaming! I'm athletic.. My feelings about that everything's fine kinda crushed. Let me tell about that.
It was a beautiful Friday afternoon. Our team left to the Track Meet by our school bus. Thank God it was indoor meet.. It's not that cold here than in Finland. Not snow haha. :)) But still too cold in Sami's opinion to run outside. We did our warm-up with our team and were ready to start. Our coach, who is a really nice guy and talented coach (he's a cop..), decided that I'll run 1 mile and 800 meters after that. I was SO nervous before a man did the starting shot. I've been running for fun in my free time for a long time (not during the winter when I was sitting on a bench in basketball). But I realized that running and competing with others and running one circle is a WAY different thing. At start I made the most stupid mistake.. I started way too fast, and tried to keep up with fastest guys. By doing that I wasted all, my lungs and heart... and started jogging. I tried to catch other guys but that was just a dream. I ended up by being the last one in my heat (=juoksuerä) and didn't feel my lungs or heart at all. Don't laugh guys.. that was a TERRIBLE feeling. I had few hours to recover from that before my next race: 800 meters. Breathing still hurt when I started to run.. I run the whole race with one guy called Kyle (same name as my bro has), and it was kinda funny when they said: "Go Kyle, catch him!" In the end he didn't catch me 'cause I did a HUGE sprint with Finnish sisu the last 150 meters. So, I wasn't last one in that race. You guys should be proud of me. :--)) I still think I would've done better in 800 meters without running that 1 mile first.
To be honest.. I don't wanna go on like this. I have decided that I ask my coach that "Could I change my distances from 1 mile and 800 meters to 800 and 400 meters. I really hope that would be possible. I don't wanna suffer anymore in meets in future.. And we have like 16 of them coming.. Meets are not so nice because you have to compete with blood in ur mouth.. just not my thing, and they usually take 5 hours.. because there's so many events and both men's and women's. After tomorrow I'll know am I able to switch my distances to more comfy ones. Let's hope the best.
Sorry.. this was kinda "complaining whole the time"-blog. I'll promise I will dry u tears and make ur sad faces (because of my sad blog) to smiles in my next blog. I totally promise I'll write more often in future that I've been doing before. Maybe just that promise makes u smile (or "I wouldn't care less").
'til next time
Sami, the runner
