One exam week left: then summer!

Next week is our exam week.. Fortunately I only have three exams left! :) (I have had even five or six exams too) So this weekend I just have to study.. I'm so looking forward to summer holiday. It begins the 1st of June.
  I'm now studying in lukio (upper secondary school). And this year has been very exhausting! I have studied so much during this first year that I think I can't handle any new information anymore because my head is full of knowledge! Btw, here's a chart of the Finnish school system for those who are interested:

Education in Finland

Academic degrees	Vocational degrees				Typical ages
doctor	employment
licentiate
master	Polytechnic (new)				+2-3
bachelor	Polytechnic				+3-4
upper secondary school (voluntary)		vocational school(voluntary)			18-19
					17-18
					16-17
comprehensive school (compulsory)					15-16
					14-15
					13-14
					12-13
					11-12
					10-11
					9-10
					8-9
					7-8
pre-school					6-7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland

In lukio we have six periods and at the end of each period we'll have the exams of the subjects we have been studying in that period (the exam week).

  After this next week I won't be in Finnish school for a year! It sounds so weird. It's not the best thing in my exchange that I will leave one year behind my friends.. but I try to think that it doesn't matter because I will have a great year and everything will be worth it :p

                                                             Just wish me luck! :)

Love

Nella

Orientation camp

I know that my blog has been very quiet lately.. I have just so much going on in my life - as usual :D I like when I have a lot of things to do :)

But this is the thing I came here to tell you:
I had the second orientation here in Finland (in Porvoo) last weekend (18.-19.5.2013)! The first one lasted only two hours and it was meant to my parents also. This one was just for the Finnish exchange students 2013-2014 via AFS. There were people who are going to Mexico, China, Thailand, Argentina, Chile, Indonesia.. and of course the other Finnish girl who is coming to Russia! It was really nice to talk with her :)
  There were also AFS volunteers in the camp who are former exchange students. They had been in the countries we are going to. So there was a girl who had been in Russia a year ago! She told us a lot about her exchange and it was really interesting. In the camp we thought and talked a lot: about Finnish culture and other cultures, next year's possible ups and downs (I'm sure it won't be that interesting and exciting all the time), our personal values and goals, for example. We also wrote a letter to ourselves to the future, those letters will be sent to us during our exchange.
  So I met a lot of new people during that weekend :) They were all very nice and we had a lot to talk about because we all had at least one thing in common: exchange. Many of them were very talkative so you had the change to talk as much there as you wanted :D

 I travelled by train from Turku to Helsinki. There was a bus from Helsinki to Porvoo.

  We (at least some of us) went to swimming - even thought the water is still very cold!

             The food in the campsite was really good! We also got some ice cream :p

                                             

  New people!<3

                   One is coming to Russia the other was in Russia (and then there's me!) :)

 

No, we didn't play football :D I think here we were playing some 'mental image' games.

     These photos get me on the summer mood!

Love
Nella

P.S I also added a counter to this site (on the right)! There you can see how many days are left until I go to Russia :))

Vappu - the first of May

Today we had no school because of Vappu. I think it's originally celebration of work. To me it just reminds me of the upcoming summer and gets me on a good, summer mood! Vappu is made from balloons, serpentiinistä (paper streamer), munkeista, simasta and other good food. Only one month school left until our summer holiday and after the summer I will leave! So not much time for that :))
  I baked  'munkkeja' (I don't know a translation for this, you can see them in a pic below) and drank 'sima' with my friend :) Hyvää Vappua kaikille - Happy  first of May  to everyone!

Finally some pictures to this blog ;)

Love
Nella