Blogger no more...

Okay, I've been uber frustrated with blogger, so I'm moving over to livejournal. My URL over there is:
www.livejournal.com/users/palapaloozaa
I'll update the links on my site when I get a chance.

I am this close to killing the computer. THIS CLOSE. I quit. I spent about 30 minutes rewriting the post that deleted itself a couple days ago. And as I went to post it, it did it again. I hate blogger and I am so close to killing it. I'm getting really frustrated with the whole post-not-posting thing. I should just save it before I post it. I can't believe this. It was so long. I worked so hard on it.

Woot!

I went to Music this morning for the first time, and I thought it was like a Music-playing course. Nuh-huh, it's like, Music-history-theory-stuff course. So I learned about the basic A-A-B-A form today. We watched this movie that was in English with Finnish subtitles, so I could actually follow and understand most of it. It was rather fun.
After that, I had my 'HYS7a' course which is Latin American history. So today we talked about the history of North America, and since I'm 'the authority on anything North American or English' I was asked all these interesting questions and stuff. It was fun though, I didn't know many countries on the map we were supposed to label, although I knew some in Finnish(Meksiko..guess which one that is:P).
I also checked out the market in Tampere that is on the first Mondays of the month. It was pretty cool, I met up with Tamra and we walked around. There's this one stand where they don't have price tags, so you have to barter and stuff....which I'm not doing until I'm good enough with my Finnish. Apparently they rip you off if you don't know what you're doing...which I wouldn't doubt.

I'm even MORE excited now. I might be going to Sweden next week on a cruise with my host family during our 'fall holiday'. Woot. So as long as Jorma says it's okay and everything, I'm agoing to Sweden for a couple hours. And a cruise! TWO new things in one shot. Annina is going to Poland on a school trip because she's vice president of her student council thing, and we're going to Sweden. It should be excited.

Also,Chris might be coming up for a while too!:D That would be so uber cool, being able to show him around my city and stuff. Hopefully that works out, it would be so much fun!

Woot!

I went to Music this morning for the first time, and I thought it was like a Music-playing course. Nuh-huh, it's like, Music-history-theory-stuff course. So I learned about the basic A-A-B-A form today. We watched this movie that was in English with Finnish subtitles, so I could actually follow and understand most of it. It was rather fun.
After that, I had my 'HYS7a' course which is Latin American history. So today we talked about the history of North America, and since I'm 'the authority on anything North American or English' I was asked all these interesting questions and stuff. It was fun though, I didn't know many countries on the map we were supposed to label, although I knew some in Finnish(Meksiko..guess which one that is:P).
I also checked out the market in Tampere that is on the first Mondays of the month. It was pretty cool, I met up with Tamra and we walked around. There's this one stand where they don't have price tags, so you have to barter and stuff....which I'm not doing until I'm good enough with my Finnish. Apparently they rip you off if you don't know what you're doing...which I wouldn't doubt.

I'm even MORE excited now. I might be going to Sweden next week on a cruise with my host family during our 'fall holiday'. Woot. So as long as Jorma says it's okay and everything, I'm agoing to Sweden for a couple hours. And a cruise! TWO new things in one shot. Annina is going to Poland on a school trip because she's vice president of her student council thing, and we're going to Sweden. It should be excited.

Also,Chris might be coming up for a while too!:D That would be so uber cool, being able to show him around my city and stuff. Hopefully that works out, it would be so much fun!

No matter how much things change, they always stay the same.

In the past two months, my life has completely changed. In moving to Finland, I've had to adapt to everything being new and different, from little things like the shape of the electrical sockets, to bigger things, like a new language. I had to leave my family that I've been living with for 17 years, and move in with a family that, as of about 2 months ago, I hadn't seen nor heard before in my life. I've had to leave my friends of 8-4 years, and make new friends. I've had to learn how to remember to say 'Hyvä huomenta' in the morning instead of 'good morning'. I've had to learn how to laugh at my stupid mistakes, like saying 'Hyvä huomenna' (Good tomorrow?) and confusing 'brother' and 'water'. It's kind of humbling, stepping foot into a culture where you can't communicate with everyone like you are used to doing. It's re-learning how to behave in a culture that you've never been in before, and having to get used to doing new things without insulting people by calling it 'weird'.

It's suprising though, in that how much has changed in the past two months, so much has remained the same. I don't know how to explain it very well, but people don't seem to change much personality-wise. There are character traits that I see in people here that remind me of traits I see in people back in Canada. When I notice something like that, I feel a little tugging on my heart, like it's pulling me 'home' in a sense. It's ...I can't put it into words. It's like a feeling that no matter where I am, there's always going to be something that's familiar, and that makes it hard to forget everything about my 'previous life' and just be here and not here, AND Canada at the same time. I absolutely love it here, and I don't know where I'm trying to go with this, but I love it here, and I don't wish for a second that I hadn't gone. I'm not trying to say that I don't miss people and stuff that you just can't find here, because I do. I miss some things and people so much, but I know that it will all be there when I get back.

Okay, now for some what-I-did-these-past-days time:

Friday :I went to school and then decided that art wouldn't be as cool as celebrating our two month anniversary with Sasha, Tamra and Marion. So I hopped the bus to Tampere and after a while I found Sasha's apartment. That involved some directions given by her hanging out of a window on her phone and me standing in the middle of the road looking for her. Heh. Fun times. So we went shopping and I got a jacket, because in Finland, you need a fall jacket, because it's not cold enough for a winter jacket yet, but it's not warm enough to wear a sweater. So me and Sasha now have almost matching jackets, mine is black and white, and hers is brown and turquoiseish (like her and Marion's tights!!!). We walked around and talked and stuff, and eventually we all went our separate ways. Me and Sasha are host cousins, being that my host family is her host family's cousins:D. So Friday night I went to this 'rap concert' with my host sisters because I had a lack of anything else to do. It was okay, there were alot of 12 year olds and younger kids there, but it was interesting. They breath-a-lyzered me on the way in, and went through my bag, but I took my camera in and took some pictures. It was free, or I wouldn't have gone. Not that I don't like rap, I just....don't like rap. Not enough to pay for it, unless it was MC Solaar or something. He has GOOD rap.

Saturday:Annina had this competition thing in Anttilla in the afternoon, so I went with the family to support her. It was like a competition to be sort of a public relations person thing with Anttilla I think. I really don't understand it fully, but yeah. Alas, she didn't win, but she did good. I'm proud of her. After that, we(Riitta(hostmom),Annina, Jannika, and my host grandma and some friend of Riitta's) went to "Manhattan Steak House" for some lunch. It was good food, although messy. VERY messy. Then Saturday night I went to Helianna's house for some movie watching with a bunch of people from school. That was fun, we watched "Duplex" which wasn't a bad movie. It had some funny points. We ate burritos and listened to music and talked and stuff. It was rather fun. I biked there, because if I took the bus, I would have had to walk home anyways(because the bus is double price after midnight, even with my bus card), and it's about a 10 minute walk from the bus stop anyways. So I met up with Hellu and Ulpa and biked down to Helianna's place. It was all in all an enjoyable evening.

Sunday:I woke up fairly early(10.30)and tidied my room, and then basically talked to Annina and knitted(?) all day. I've pretty much finished the scarf that I started last Monday, so that was pretty quick.

On a side note, just for the parentals because I know you're reading this :P :I haven't gained that much weight yet...only about 3 or 4kgs. Which isn't bad mind you, because Iwent from eating about 2.5 meals a day to eating about 4 or 5. 6 on Wednesdays. Heh. So I may be "fat", but at least I have long, not-gray hair DAD:P

Hahahahahahhahaha...

Oktoberfest!!

I just wrote this out and then the internet crapped out on me so here it is again. Forgive the less-detail, I'm getting tired.

I went to Tampere after my 45 minutes of school today. I met up with Sasha(also a Kanadalainen like me) and we walked around KoskiKeskus and downtown. We ran into Marion who was on her way to Finnish lessons, and joined us, forsaking the Finnish lessons. Not even a block later, we ran into Mike who's currently living in Hämeenlinnä and is up here for a week visiting his host brother in UofTampere. So that was cool, we hung out and saw this Oktoberfest wagon, pulled by horses, with a small brass band on it. So we started dancing to the music and we called Lucas(from Germany) and he heard the music, so that was cool. Then we sat on the steps outside the old church-clock tower thing by Keskustori sunning ourselves. It was a balmy 12 degrees and some of us stripped down to our spaghetti strap shurts and we basked in the bright light and warmthness. I ended up leaving early because I was supposed to have a Rotary meeting tonight, but it was cancelled as I found out just as the bus went on the freeway, so I couldn't really go back.

'Eat what Jesus did: Fish, whole grains, and vegetables'

That's from the reading comphrension part of my English test today. It was an article about how people who eat junk food are fat, and stuff about that. Not suprisingly, they really only talked about how people in USA are dealing with it, but it was interesting none-the-less. My teacher also showed me the final exam that the 3rd years wrote. It also had some interesting articles in it, way better than my English exam last year. There was one on why more girls don't go into computer science and one on mushrooms in Britain. Pretty darn interesting.

Yesterday after my English prep class I went to the city with Hellu and we went to KoskiKeskus(the mall in Tampere), where, suprise suprise, I found pants. My jeans have been getting rather thin and I've been on the look out for a deal on pants, being that they're fricking expensive here. So we were looking in i.C. and I saw these cool pants. I checked out the price tag before falling in love with them(as I've learned to do here...I saw this really cool sweater for about 90€ and it wasn't like uber fancy or anything). My jaw dropped. 7.90€, and they were 39.90€ before. So I tried them on and I ended up going back to get a bigger pair because the first pair were too small. When I was there, the woman from the store was there re-tagging all the pants. Checking out the new price, I braced myself. 3.90€. It was absolutley insane. I ended up getting two pairs, being that they were so cheap, and I needed new pants anyways. It was insane, I still can't believe it.

Tomorrow, I will have been in Finland for 2 months. It's crazy, it doesn't seem like I've been here that long. I can definetly tell that my Finnish has improved though, I understand WAY more that I did when I first came here. It's pretty cool, being that I haven't taken any formal lessons or anything aside from Karkku. Although I did learn alot from German and French, and a little from English. Don't get me wrong, I still have a long way to go, but I understand a lot more than I did 2 months ago. I can have a short conversation with my sister in Finnish, and ask simple things, which is really cool. It is frustrating sometimes though, like when you have a complex thought that you just can't express to someone or explain, although I'm getting better at that. I've been asked how to explain so many words, and it's hard sometimes. Some of the words I've never heard before and that makes it pretty damn hard, because I guess that since I'm a native speaker, people kind of assume I've heard every word before, but it's fun. I got 'matrical' yesterday. According to www.dictionary.com it means 'of or relating to a matrix'. Although I totally forgot the word 'term' existed. Everyone has been asking me what 'jakso' was in English, because we start a new one tomorrow....and I didn't know the word for it. Ah well, life goes on.

Just a little fun break...

because I just failed a french exam, and I needed something to do, so here's something kinda fun.


Given Name:: Meagan Kathleen
Gender:: Female
Age:: 17
Date of Birth:: November 5th 1986
Marital Status:: Single and lovin' it.
Hair Color:: Dark blonde and purple
Hair Type:: It's kinda straightish but it flips out at the bottom.
Eye color:: Greenish blue
Height:: about..17ocm I think, which is about 5'6
AIM/AOL Screen Name:: ulkomaalainen..or palapaloozaa because I've used it for pretty much everything so far...

Favorites…
Word(s):: Heh. The word on the Cheerios box that's about 27 letters long. I'm not even joking about that, or exaggerating. Oh ,I miss saying 'Eh?' because it's pronounced the same way as 'ei' in Finnish ,which means 'no' so it's kinda weird for people to understand.
Language:: Currently....I'm not sure. Russian sounds really cool, but Finnish is wicked too. Wicked hard:P
Food:: Sushi, salmkiakki, chocolate, rye bread
Drink:: ED
Band:: toughie. Dark Tranquility, Opeth, Matthew Good, Children of Bodom
Singer:: No idea.
T.V Show:: Sex and the City, Pelinaiset(it's like, football women in english. soccer-football, not american football...),
Movie:: Don't make me pick one....Mary Poppins, Equilibrium,
Pet:: Cat
Animal:: Cat
Number::5
Telephone Number:: 0445545461
Holiday:: Halloween
Weather:: Sunny
Flower:: Daffodill
Scent:: Fall.
Color:: Black and Red
Celebrity:: Pikku G! lmao...uh no idea really.
DVD:: Isn't this like a movie?...

Have you ever?
Kissed the same sex?: Not in a sexual way
Had Sex?: Nope
Gotten detention?: Yuppers
Got Grounded?: Yup
Cheated On Someone?: Nope
Were Caught Cheating?: Nope
Lost Your Wallet?: Nope
Lost Your Cellular Phone?: Heh not permanetly lost. I've lost it as in, forgot where I put it, lost it, but I found it again.
Spied On Your Mom And Dad?: Only when they were talking about me:P
Were Caught Doing something wrong?: Not exactly...heh.
Cursed At Your Parents?: Yup
Been In Love?:*shrugs*
Been Loved?: Yup
Used a Friend?: Yeah
Been Used By A Friend?: Yeah
Lost a Friend?: Yeah
Been Cheated On?: Not that I'm aware of, but probably not.
Been To the Emergency Room?: Heh. Yeah. Good ol' bleedin' nose.
Broken a Bone?: Nope

Are you...
Lesbian/Gay?: Nope.
Bisexual?: Nope.
Somewhat Attractive?: People don't seem to run and hide when I show my face outside most of the time... does that count?
Depressed?: Nope.
In Pain?: Nope.
Worried?: Nah not really.
In Shock?: A little.
Exited?: Yup.
Happy?: Yeah.
Obsessed?: With what? Probably not.
A Drug Addict?: Nope.
A Smoker?: Nopers.
An Alcoholic?: No
A Loner?: No more than the average person who doesn't speak the language of the country that they live in.
Loved?: Hah, I answered this one already.
Hated?: Oh probably.
Wanted?: Who knows?
Unwanted?: Ah probably.
Shy?: Not as much anymore.
Bored?: I've been at school for about 3.5 hours, about 1 hour of which I needed to be here, I just need something to do.
Having Fun?: Yeah.
Listening To Music?: Nope
Watching T.V?: Nope
On the Computer?: Is this supposed to be rhetorical?
Doing Homework?: Homework? What's that?:P
Single?: And lovin' it.
Taken?: Nope.

Choose:
Chocolate or Vanilla?: Chocolate.
Dog or Cat?: Cat
Sleeping or Awake?: Sleeping right now. I really should go to bed earlier when I have to be up early, but I ended up watching TV with my sisters and knitting.
Sunny or Gloomy?: Sunny
Dark or Light?: Light
Pretty or Ugly?: Pretty
Wanted or Unwanted?: Wanted
Burgers or Hot Dogs?: Burgers
Sitting or Standing Up?: Lying down.
Computer or T.V?: TV. I've learned some new Finnish words from watching TV
Noise or Silence?: A little noise.
Boys or Girls?: Guys.
Virgin or Non-Virgin?: If we're talking about margarita's, then non-virgin...:P
Slut or Decent?: Decent
Nice or Mean?: Nice
Stupid or Smart?: Smart
Shy or Funny?: Funny.
Rain or Snow?: Snow
Cold or Warm?: Warm
Cat Fight or Fist Fight?: Fist
Gum or Candy?: Candy. Mmm salmiakki
Juice or Soda?: Pop.
Beer or Cigarette?: Beer. Cigarettes are bad for you. They cause cancer. And so many people smoke here.
Old or Young?: Young
Boring or Fun?: Fun
Numbers or Letters?: Letters:)
Bath or Shower?: Sauna:P
Dry or Wet?: Wet
Sex, Drugs, or Rock and Roll?: Rock and Roll.
Wearing?: Jeans, shirt, shoes, watch, glasses.
Watching?: My spelling get really really crappy.
Listening To?: The physics class study for their test tomorrow.
Staring At?: Computer screen
Eating?: Already ate lunch, mashed potatoes(what a suprise, potatoes!) and ground meat, salad and bread.
Drinking?: Nothing.
Smelling?: Nothing.
Tasting?: Nothing.
Thinking?: To go to the city..or not....or go...or not...
Mood?: Mentally tired.

Who was the last person...
You Talked To?: Hellu
You Listened To?: Hellu
You Looked At?:Ivy
You Touched?: Hellu
You Hugged?: Hellu
You Kissed?: Malcolm...
Had Sex With?: N/A
You Instant Messaged?: Darren
You Text messaged?: Tiia, for about the 50th time this month.
You Were On the Phone With?: On A REAL Land Line Phone:My parents from the airport in Helsinki. On My Cell Phone:Annina
You Lost?: Are we talking lost as in 'Where am I?'-lost, because that would have been me. To make a long story short, wrong bus, wrong time, wrong location.
You Missed?: Aww my family in Canada
You Needed?: No idea.
You Loved?: Well I still love everyone I loved before. Like my mommy and daddy and my sister and my brothers...and Matthew too I guess:P
You Cried with?: Sad cried:On the phone with Steve. Laughing Cried: At the thought of Steve in a black corset.
You Laughed With?: Myself, over the thought of Steve in a black corset. It's not my fault, he wrote about it in his LJ.
Yelled At?: Oh, when Hellu and I were looking for Hellianna, I stood on the balcony at school and called her name for a while.
Who Pissed You Off?: Yahoo Photos. They should die for offering really crappy services. And Shutterfly, they gave me about 15 free pics, but other then that, they suck too.
Who Made You Happy?: Hellu, being all excited to see me and running up behind me and hugging me.
Who Made You Sad?: My host mom's friend who was planning on getting an abortion if she was pregnant. A little background info, she is mildly handicapped and she was worried about doing something wrong while she was pregnant, and the baby would have had a 50% chance of being handicapped as well. She ended up not being pregnant though, so that was good news for her.
Who Made You Cry?: Myself. I was having a hard week and I was missing pretty much everything from back in Canada, and it wasn't exactly all sunshine and smiles. I was frustrated with not being able to communicate with people in Finnish and not being able to understand anything at school and just generally frustrated. But I've gotten over that, and I'm slowly beginning to understand a little bit more of everything.
You Said Hello To?: Hello...haven't said that in a while:P Hellu.
You Said Goodbye To?: That either. But my host mom on my way to school today.

Wow, that totally took me about 40 minutes to do. Ah oh well. Well, I think I'm going to the city now, so drop me a line if you actually read this, because I'm curious. I know my family does, but who else, if anyone?

Särkänniemi!!

On Thursday our school band had our first performance...It went pretty well, we only had a couple little mistakes and one major one, but it got worked out and we survived. Nothing uber bad.

I figured out the picture problem, and I've got them up now, although I'm going to be moving them all to photobucket.com because I'm really not completly satisfied with shutterfly. So that's a work in progress to be accomplished during this next week, being that I have 3 exams and 5 days of pretty much nothing. The exams here are more like tests. I have about 40 minutes to write each of them, and they're totally not bad. I'm probably going to do pretty bad on them, but it'll be okay. It's the experience, not the final result that matters. That's cliche I know, but it's still true.

Friday night I went to Ulpa's house to watch movies with Suski, Helianna and Hellu. It was fun, we ended up talking about boys and stuff for about 2 hours and only watching Bad Boys 2. It was fun.

Yesterday I went to Särkänniemi with Annina being that it was the cheap day. So we went there and walked around looking at the animals because the actual amusement park was closed. We saw Muumies singing too, and we might have danced a little....and sang....lol. We went to the aquarium as well, because it was half price:D Woot. After that, we were in Koski Keskus and we ran into some of the exchange students from around the area. I ended up going for coffee and Jenga at Cafe Europe with them and hanging out for a while. That night, I went to Enter, which is a little coffee house in Moisio with Suski, Hellu, Ulpa, Miska and some other people. That was pretty fun, we tried to play Monopoly but it didn't really work out. Around 10.45, this guy came in who was a little intoxicated. He started asking me questions about why I was speaking English and not finnish. So I told him I was from Canada, and he started hassling me about how Canada kind of beat Finland in the World Cup of Hockey. So that was good for some amusement...He kept asking me to speak German which was kinda funny.