English posts

18.11.2014

Moikka This time I want to report about a speciasports lesson. Old dances. Really old dances. I have never danced something like that, but it has given pleasure.
How you know, the sports lessons are divided on my school into girl and boys groups. The confusing part was when we had to mix these groups. So we had to stand in two lines. The first round was an old dance which you more often see in the old films. He is called Do-Sa-Do-Mixer. Sounds funny, however, is amusing because you always changes the partner. As other dances we had Cicapo, waltz, rock'n'roll, and the Kehruuvalssi. Most are group dances, because everybody dances with everybody and one group forms a circle. There must be variations , but within the dance you cannot introduce your own ideas.  If you put "old dances" in to google they seem to be easy, but I can say you one comes rather quickly in a mess with knowing whether you have to change the partner or not. But I will more exactly learn this next period. I have chosen old dances as a subject. Ordinarily only students in the 12th class can choose it, but I am allowed to, because I'm an exchange student. My dancing partner and I are friends , the today's dances has worked well, so in my opinion it cannot be better. I still have to find my dress, but there's still time.
I upload a video which will show you what we learn in the sports lessons.

(you can find the link in the comments of the german article "vanhojen tanssit oder Alte Tänze")

I'll keep reporting about it. 
Your Träumerin

 
06.11.2014

Winterkinder können stundenlang am Fenster stehn
und voll Ungeduld hinauf zum Himmel sehn.
Winterkinder in den Bergen oder an der See,
alle warten auf den ersten Schnee.

Sie wollen nicht immer nur durch grauen Nebel schaun,
sie wollen lieber einen grossen Schneemann baun.

Winterkinder können stundenlang am Fenster stehn...

Sie träumen von Schlittschuhlaufen und der Rodelbahn
und davon, endlich wieder Schuss ins Tal zu fahrn.

Winterkinder können stundenlang am Fenster sthen
und voll Ungedulg hinauf zum Himmel sehn.
Winterkinder in den Bergen oder an der See, alle warten auf den ersten Schnee...*

This song I heard in my childhood is rotating in my head since 11:15. If you wonder why here's the answer: IT'S SNOWING! Really! Thick white snowflakes are falling from the sky, it's cold and slippery outside and the bus is driving slower than the last weeks. It's finally winter in Turku. Of course, it's "just" november" and christmas is about one month away, but for me it's not normal to see snow in november.
First I wasn't that happy about it. I thought it wouldn't stay, but now it's getting late and the snow is still there! And there's coming more. I think I have a white winter-wonder-land in front of me tomorrow. And now I enjoy it;)
My friends say the snow will melt fast. Shit. For some of my new friends it was a special day today. They saw snow for the first time in their lives. Can you imagine that? To have no snow in winter, to build no snowman and no white flakes falling from the sky. They've seen that only in movies. My friends Hazel is from Pakistan and during winter there are still 21°C. You can imagine how hot the summer is there... Lillian comes from Taiwan and also never saw snow before. Her eyes were getting bigger and she smiled like she just got the best present in her lifetime.  This moment showed me again that we should be happy with what we have and that we should pay more attention to the small things in our live. Not everything that is self-evident for us is self-evident for other people, too. Sure, if we're waiting in the cold for the bus and the bus is on time, we're more than happy, but I don't mean that kind of happyness. I mean the feeling when you do a favor to a older people through given him/her your seat in the bus. Often you get a thankful smile as a reward. 
As you can see, the snow has a influence on me. But there isn't just calm and quietness coming with the snow. There are also thoughts coming up that can make you cheerful. Thoughts like: "Do I have all the presents? What should I give to my best friend as a present? From where do I get a german book here?" and so on. You see it's the normal stress around christmas. But in at least 48 days the whole chaotic time is over and we enjoy traditions and a merry christmas. Beside, I celebrate christmas with typical finnish traditions this year. But I have to find them out first. I think my friends have to answer a lot questions in the next days. Get ready! 
For the end a video with a german children song:)

Yours, 
Träumerin    


03.11.2014

Hei

after long time I write another post  from the north. In the meantime, it has become even colder and my winter jacket from Germany, for January and snow, has become my autumn jacket. To me it's simply too windy and in the morning, nevertheless, it is rather cold if I must wait for the bus. The temperatures in the school change per floor and the teachers love to open our windows. Terribly. Also the teaching material becomes not easier. In maths I hardly survive,  physics mutates to a foreign language and chemistry is to run away For what must I know how to factorise polynomials or what the formula CuSO4 x 5H2O stands for? My future plans neither include maths studies nor a job with chemistry. Luckily I am not alone with these problems. In math noone understands anything, physics is also not a favorite subject and chemistry is an avoided course. Now the teachers start with extra coaching, but whether do they really help?  

 Everybody know these pictures of a class wearing earphones while doing a multiple choice test.
 Up to now I always thought, this would only happen in America or in films, but today this vision changed. I had an Listening-comprehension practise test. So, let's put the earphone on, listen and mark the right answer. Already a weird feeling. However, for me this had only positive sides: you aren't distracted so easily, you don't hear the nose pulling of the neighbour and can hear the tasks even if you sit in the very back corner sits.Provided the earphones works. Of course I made a Selfie immediately. And I will upload the pictures here... There falls to me: I still have to upload the other pictures... Oh god I'm forgetful. But the next subject: HALLOWEEN!

Halloween, from all Hallows' Eve names the national customs in the evening and at night before the High-strength All Saints' Day, from the 31st of October on 1st of November. These customs and traditions were spread originally above all in Catholic Ireland.... http://de.wikipedia.org / wiki/Halloween

So I must say, this meets it certainly in the historical area. It is more suitable:

   noun [C or U] uk (Hallowe \'en) / ˌh æ l. əʊˈ iːn/us/-o -/
    ›the night of 31 October when children dress in special clothes and people try to frighten each other
    (Definition of Halloween from the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary & thesaurus © Cambridge University Pressing)

Halloween is rather unknown in Finland and became popular approx. 3 years ago.

 Nevertheless, there was a sort of event at school for which we had to dress up. In Germany most high school students would refuse to dress up, however, here everybody takes part. We had many costumes: Minnie Mouse, a horse, Vendetta, dolls, a dragon, vampires, devils, cats...

Some students from my year

As you see, brightly mixed. Pictures of me will follow:

The previous evening the make-up was tried out and the hair was coloured  already

 

 Still fast a picture for Instagram :)
 (There you find me, by the way, under

 Harmonjafotographics  )
 

 I have not used this wound then on account of cold weather.... One can't wear a jacket with this...

  Also such pictures are sent with pleasure sometimes:)

All together it was a lot of fun, and on the way home I was looked at by children joyfully, while the older generation was confused. Also the bus driver was confused a little bit, however, he had to grin.Nobody has rung on the door that night, and I have seen only few dressed up Kids. Pity. This is always so sweet when infants in costumes stand in front of your door and sing, or makes \"friendly \" pranks. However, this has also changed according to safe sources. At least in my native country. Pity again.
Let's see how it will be the next year. I'm already curious:)
 How was your Halloween?
 

Your Träumerin 

P.S Yes, this post is short, but here happend nothing. Next time I'll write more again...   

12.10.2014

Moi
In Germany is now vacation time what you can see on  Facebook and Whatsapp à la \"nice holidays to everybody \" and \"FINALLY PARTYTIME \". I wonder how they spend the holydays? Especially in the cold north. Some of my friends will probably leave into warmer areas, sleep long or do nothing. And one special, really important person sits down in the airplane and flies voluntarily in the cold north. Who would do something like that? Flying voluntarily from warm in the cold, rainy Turku? I know somebody. Or better two people. The first one is the husband of my granny.   My prey grandpa Thomas. He has been, together with my better half, at 4:00 on saturday
 on their way to the airport in Bremen. My better half is called Ricarda and is my best friend. I cannot say at all how patient she can be sometimes with me and how great she is. These both have sat down on Saturday in the car to visit my granny and me. But how do they come from Tampere to Turku, Kuopio or Helsinki? Exactly! By my granny Mummi and me. So we have also peeled off early from the warm bed and have come along on the way in approx. 155 km of far away Tampere to pick them up. On the way to Tampere my mobile navigationsystem meant to say that we would be there in 27 minutes.This could not be right. We still had about 90 km to drive and we would be 1 hour too early at the airport. Sooo... Let's calculate route new. \"you still have to drive 1 hour and 30-minutes. You will arrive at your destination at 9 o'clock and 33 minutes \" after that my mobile phone bleated me in and we said "Shit! That will run short! \".

 Ricarda and Thomas should land around 9:35. Press so a little bit more the accelerator and hope that the elks and deer remain in the forest. In Finland is at the moment hunting time what means that the deers and their herd dash through the forest like rotten chickens. And elks do not care anyhow about cars. They make them just flatly with their 2 tonnes of weight. Just after left the city of Turku we have seen the first fox and the second one ran across the street a little later. Not badly if one thinks that one sees these animals in Germany mostly deadly in the street edge. 

However, I was really nonplussed when a lynx crossed the street in front of us. Yes there was really a lynx. But we found out what kind of animal it was after I searched for wildcats in Finland in Google. Mummi remembered only  the Finnish word \"Ylvis \" for it. But if you type \"Ylvis \" into Google you only find pictures and videos  from the band "\ Ylvis \"  (What does the fox say?),  The rest of the journey went  without other incidents. When we arrived at the airport, the airplane had already landed (clearly that it came too early) and the passengers stood outside. And there stood also Ricarda and Thomas. Mummi parked the car on the police parking bay because we wanted to pay no park fee of 5€. And then the kuddling started.

I have missed Rici so much. What two months of separation affects... Thomas had birthday, so we sang a short song. And Thomas repacked the car. At the end we have fitted everybody in the quite full car and on we went to the nearness of Kuopio. To Lilly. The weather has not promised too much and soon it caught in to rain. Occasionally make purchases and then unload fast the car. Lilly \'s house is in the middle of nowhere, and you meet rather a bear than a person. It lies on a hill and is of wood. Inside everything is arranged rather rustic, but is very comfortable, nevertheless. In the hall hangs a whole elk's fur. Including hoofs and head parts.... Creepily how big they are. In the evening we went into the sauna. Wonderfully. At night it got cold, but the gigantic marriage bed in which Ricarda and I sleep is very nice. We have a chimney in our room, maybe we turn it on in tonight.
Today we have slept very long and have had breakfast extensively.Afterwards iRicarda and I started to bake a cake. Thomas had still no birthday cake and, moreover, this was our present. The whole thing became a Peek-a-Boo-cake from the Cosmopolitan. I'll upload pictures under Finland Impresions. The cake was really tasty and some from Germany want it with pleasure for their birthday if I am back in germany again. Clear, that is absolutely easy, a true calorie bomb (maybe there were no calorie information beside the recipe because the numbers would be too long). It contains 350 g of sugar and butter plus icing. So it is just for people who are self-confident enough to have one or two grammes more on the hips.
of course we were in the sauna again today. But with whipping. Whipping? Now mybe some alarm bells or small pictures will appear in your head, but I can say that it is different as you think. With whipping is believed that one hits oneself with a bundle from little birch branch and thereby ethereal oils. Alternatively one dips the bundle in warm or cold water before hitting oneself.
 The whole thing contributes to the health and is very pleasant. Hopefully it helps me in my lost voice and the light cold will disappear. At the moment we sit in the sitting room. Mummi and Lilly talk, Ricarda solves Sudoku which confuses me just while I look at them and Thomas reads the newspaper.

Lilly sews, besides, and the television runs, without somebody watching it. Such a relaxing evening. Tomorrow we make an excursion and on Tuesday we go to Helsinki. Then on Thursday we go again back to the hopefully dry Turku. And then, on Monday the school begins for me again. Yes I have only one week of holidays. So a dung. I wish you a nice vacation time and a cheers on portable WLAN-Router.

Yours, Träumerin    

03.10.2014
 Hello from the very autumnal Turku:)
The last days weren't exhausting, even if the last week were our exam-week. In these week we have all our exams and we only go to school for three hours. I know there the question: "Just three hours?" in your mind. I know it sounds good, but it isn't for your amusement. Every six weekswe have an exam-week, in which we write a test (exam) about the knowledge we have studied. Of course we write the tests in english. That meant for me last wednesday TOK-presentation, on Thursday I had a free day, because I hadn't got a finnish-exam. My psychology-exam was one day later, on friday. The following weekend was planned for learning. Then on monday I had my english-exam, at tuesday I wrote my maths-test and additional on wednesday my french-test. As you can see, it was a intensive week. Every day from 9 untill 12 o'clock we had the chance to show what we know and to answer the questions the teacher asked. For how to write the exams my school has special rules. All students write the test in the auditorium and the seats are marked with colors. The seats are mixed so you never sit next to a student with the same color. We have to leave our bags on the ground of the auditorium and you only take a pencil, an eraser, a snack, water and a calculator with you. If a teacher see you with your mobile during the exam you fail automatically. The rules looks strict and not necessary, but I think they are really usefull. Every student has the same conditions and no one can cheat. A really good thing is that you can repeat a exam if you want. But what happens during the three hours in the auditorium?
At 9 o'clock starts the exam-day and we can enter the auditorium. We all look for a seat with the right color and put our bags to the ground of the auditorium. The teacher tells us to start if everyone has a place to sit. From this moment on we have three hours to finish our test. After two hours the first students can leave the auditorium. The teacher seperate us in three groups and we can go out in groups. That prevents chaos. Who needs more time, can stay and keep writing. At 12 o'clock the day ends and we all have to finish our exams.
How did my exams go? My TOK-presentation went fine. We talked about Putin's behaviour and in what extend one's behaviour it could affect the world.
In psychology in wrote an essay. It is 9 pages long. And of course I wrote in english. Not just 180 words like in my old tests in germany. With these kind of text  I cant't work anymore. I can't put all my knowledge in that kind of text. I hope the expectations changed in the meantime in germany. I think I never wrote that much in an exam.
Emglish went well, too and to my suprise my maths-exam went well aswell. Often I finished my test before 11 o'clock, so I had to wait. I'm used to write exams in 45 or 90 minutes, because it is standard in my school in germany. The best test was french. In the night before the test I nearly ate the vocabs and the grammar rules, because my teacher said we should learn them by heart. The exams includes five pages. Three were filled with multiple-choice questions, one with exercises where you have to fill in missing words and on the last page were three exercises which said you have to write a text. Unfortunately there weren't a sentence about how many texts we have to write, so we all wrote all three texts. I finished all the tasks in 40 minutes, so I had a lot time left. So, what to d0? You can't do anything but sleeping. It was the first time that I was sleeping during an exam. First it felt wrong, but in the end it was the best thing I ever did. I felt georgeous after it.
All in all I'm really happy that the week is over now. It was kind of exhausting, but interesting. And in six weeks, the next exam-week starts. With new subjects. This is because my schedule changed. I have physics and chemistry instead of psychology and TOK now.
And my finnish-lessons already started. The first lesson was today and I understood most of the spoken parts. We introduced ourselves and talked about us. It went well and I'll show you what I told the other students:

Minä olen Monja. 
Minä olen kuusitoista vuotta vanha. 
Minä olen saksalainen.
Minä asun Turussa.
Minä puhuu saksaa, englantia ja ranskaa. 
Minun perheeseeni kuuluu isä, äiti ja minä. 
Minä harastan tanssia.

If you want to know what it means use google to look for translations:)
And now, hyvää yötä (Good night)

Yours, Träumerin 


27.09.2014
Hey you
I report back as an official TNK-IB-Schul-Mitglied. Yes, you read it right. Now I am, together with my class-mates, an official part of the Lukio (High School).We can be proud of it. We are now safe before the attacks of the Second graders, but must obey them. We sweared it. But stop right here a minute. Oath, Second graders and baptism? I probably start at the beginning of this story.
So one or two weeks ago we were initiated. The students from the class above us (second graders) are planning our baptisms. For it we meet on Friday, 26.09.2014 around 18:00 on the marketplace. In costumes. The costumes looked about thus:

Who doesn't arrive  in such a way, or completely stays away, won't have fun during the next years.
The people on the marketplace have not looked badly when two classes stood in very funny shapes in a line on the marketplace. In front of them were  stewardesses and Jungs in suits. After the first costume control and finishing touches with oil, eggs and honey the first tasks were set. We had to prove our love to the second graders, sing some songs. Who wasn't  well enough or wasn't persuasive, was recompensed with an egg in the nape. Or punished. Depending on your point of view. Then we had to position ourselves in a circle and watch how a student specially became "punished". What followed this, was sobering. We had to put a hand between the legs and take the hand of the person in front  with the other hand, so that a closed circle originated. We stood bent forward. Very uncomfortably. Here still another photo:








After we were tormented with it there came the individual duties. All embarrassingly and linkedly with the public. The plan looked like this:



Some were really horrorible. And the punishment by honey in the hair, shirt or so was not much better. Nevertheless, we had a giant funand I believe somewhere everybody covered expenses. In ends we were placed with garbage bags over the head in the bus direction of party.

What we didn't know was that there the real baptism took place. What do you picture under baptism? Something with water or beer, right? I also imagined something like that in the direction, but what came I haven't expected. Of course we all expected the worst when we saw the bucket with a brown liquid and the hidden packets of flour. But one thought  let all that look not so bad. The warm showers inside of the house. Though we were so right in the middle of nowhere, but interesting it still looked interesting in spite of everything. So we crouched well like chickens on the pole and expected the farther events. Some of the stewardesses climbed chairs and we had to pass an oath. I cannot remember the exact text, but the approximate text was that we give our best at school, obey the second graders and treat us well without rash judging.Everything sounds good, up to "obey second graders without limitation". We will see what will comes next...



Besides, the second graders had incredibly fun, just as in the next action. There were still the buckets. And the flour. And what can one make with thus? Right! Throw it over harmless students and call the baptism. This was so disgusting! In the bucket was probably beer, eggs and still something else, because I had egg-pure on my sweater. The flour has still improved the whole. We were decorated perfectly. But, nevertheless, we had not given up all hope for the warm showers yet. However, this hope positioned itself as in vain out. I don't know how it was in the other shower room, but we had ice-cold water. We have courageously washed our hair and doesn't try to put out our bodies too much to the water. After my shower has decided to dilute the jet of water I have turned on another, and tatatata! I had warm water. At the beginning only a little, but after a short time I stood under wonderfully warm water. Then we have comed-out the eggs and the other things with a  brush and get us ready for the party. And there the next drama already came up. Everybody should bring his own drinking and eating. Only unfortunately, this information has told us nobody. So, how do we solve the problem? I have called my granny whom then friendly brought us drinking and crisps. Problem solved. In the meantime, they played really good music. So off to the dancing. We girls have had a good time. The music direction was "put rather on everything with beat", but this was good. A boy has joined us to dance with us, but it fast has turned out that he has concentrated upon me. We have introduced ourselves quickly and danced again. We have talked, danced and have laughed a lot. It has happened nothing, but it was quite really fun.
 





Love,
Your Träumerin